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PRESIDENT SCHURMAN 



NOVEM.BER ii, 1892 




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PROCEEDINGS AND ADDRESSES 

AT THE INAUGURATION OF 

JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN,LLD. 

TO THE 
/ 

PRESIDENCY OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY 

November ii, 1892 




ITHACA, N. Y. 
PUBLISHED FOR THE UNIVERSITY 
1892 



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INAUGURATION 

OF 

PRESIDENT SCHURMAN. 



At a special meeting of the Board of Trustees held on Mon- 
day, the eighteenth of May, 1892, the resignation of President 
Charles Kendall Adams having been presented and accepted. 
Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman was unanimously elected president 
of Cornell University. A committee consisting of Hon. Andrew 
D. White and Dr. Daniel E. Salmon was appointed to notify 
Dr. Schurman of his election and to invite him to come before 
the Board and state his pleasure. In response to the invitation 
of the committee, Dr. Schurman appeared before the Board, and 
in a few brief remarks formally accepted the office to which he 
had been elected. 

At a subsequent meeting of the executive committee of 
the Board of Trustees it was decided that the inauguration of 
President Schurman should take place on Friday, the eleventh 
of November, and a committee of arrangements was appoint- 
pointed, consisting of Hon. Henry W. Sage, Chairman, and the 
following members of the Board, Robert H. Treman, George 
R. Williams, and Samuel D. Halliday. 

This committee decided to hold the Inauguration Ceremo- 
nies in Armory Hall, Friday, November nth, at 10:30 A. M., 
and by special announcement all regular University exercises 
were suspended on that day. 

The academic body consisting of trustees, faculties, grad- 
uate and under-graduate students were requested to meet on 



4 Cornell University. 

the campus at 9:30 a. m., the places of assembly being assigned 
as follows : 

Trustees at the president's office. 

Faculty, instructors and officers at the faculty's rooms. 

Fellows and graduate students at Morrill Hall. 

Students of the law school at the Law School Building. 

Seniors and juniors at McGraw Hall. 

Sophomores and freshmen at White Hall. 

The procession, numbering about one thousand, was formed 
under the direction of I^ieutenant Bell, assisted by the Officers 
of the Battalion, and preceded by the University Band marched 
to the Armor}' Hall. 

Gartland's Orchestra of Albany, N. Y., stationed in the 
gallery, rendered the ' 'Austrian Army March' ' while the pro- 
cession entered the Hall and proceeded to seats which had been 
reserv^ed for them. The ceremonies began promptly at 10:30 
A. M., and the following was the 

PROGRAMMK : 
Music, By the Cornell Glee Club 

Prayer, By the Rev. Stephen H. Synnott 

Music, By the Orchestra 

Address in behalf of the Students, 

By Mr. Harlan Moore, 
President of the Senior Class 
Address in behalf of the Alumni, 

By Mr. Frank H. Hiscock:, '75 
Address in behalf of the Faculty, 

By Prof. George C. Caldwell, Ph.D. 
Reply, By the President 

Music, By the Orchestra 

Address in behalf of the Trustees, 

By the Hon. Samuel D. Halliday 



Inauguration op President Schurman. 5 

Presentation of tlie CHarter and the Seal, 

By the Hon. Henry W. Sage, 
Chairman of the Board of Trustees 

Acceptance of the Charter and the Seal, 

By the President 

Music, By the Cornell Glee Club 

Inaugural Address, 

By President Jacob Gould Schurman, LL.D. 
Music, By the Orchestra 

Benediction, By the Rev. Charles M. Tyler, D.D. 

The Cornell Glee Club sang : 

" Far above Cayuga's waters 

With its waves of blue, 
Stands our noble Alma Mater, 

Glorious to view. 
Lift the chorus, speed it onward. 

Loud her praises tell, 
Hail to thee, oh Alma Mater, 

Hail, all hail Cornell ! 

Far above the busy humming 

Of the bustling town. 
Reared against the arch of heaven. 

Looks she proudly down. 
Lift the chorus, speed it onward. 

Loud her praises tell. 
Hail to the, oh Alma Mater, 

Hail, all hail, Cornell." 

PRAYER BY THE REV. STEPHEN H. SYNNOTT. 

Almighty and everlasting God, our Heavenly Father, who 
art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and are wont to 
give more than we desire or deserve ; we humbly beseech Thee 
to hear us as we come before Thee to present our supplications 
and our thanksgivings. Thou art our Maker — our Helper and 
our Redeemer, O Lord ! Thou by Thy living presence — ^by Thy 



6 CoRNEi.1, University. 

sympathy — by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, dost con- 
descend to help us, and we acknowledge that it is what Thou 
givest us — what we receive from Thee — what Thou dost help us 
to do, that makes us to prosper. Without Thee nothing is 
strong, nothing is Holy, nothing is really successfril, and there- 
fore we come before Thee this day to offer unto Thee our pray- 
ers and our thanksgivings. Especially at this new beginning 
of things in this institution, at this daj^ of inauguration of a 
future which we trust may be larger and grander than even the 
past has been ; at this hour may we think and realize and 
give thanks to Thee for that which from the beginning Thou 
hast designed for the sons of man. What a future ! What 
progress ! What power ! What an inheritance of the earth 
and the skies. And may we all feel, and most of all, those up- 
on whose young years this future is just dawning, the true 
magnificence Thou hast planned, and that we are, indeed, fel- 
low workers with Thee in laying the foundations and in rear- 
ing the walls of the greatness that is to be, and in making ad- 
vance to that perfect manhood and that supreme dominion over 
the works of Thy hands, which Thou hast showed us in Thy 
Beloved Son, our example and our model. And knowing that 
in this institution and other like ones Thou hast put into our 
hands the instruments and tools whereby we may work out 
this larger future, may we humbly seek of Thee and obtain 
wisdom to use them as thou hast ordained. Especially we im- 
plore Thy blessings upon him who now takes the great respon- 
sibility and the most serious charge of the presidency of this 
University. May he be endued with strength of body and of 
soul to fit him for the work that lies before him. Make him 
humble in the hour of success and give him the grace of 
patience in the hour of trial. Through sunshine and in cloud 
may he ever rest upon Thee. And so crown with success his 
efforts in the years to come, to guide, to plan and to build. 
Bless all who are in any way his helpers and coadjutors in the 
work of this University. May the}^ be guided and governed by 
Thy Good Spirit in the ways of wisdom and understanding. 
May no means be wanting to enable them to fulfill their de- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 7 

signs, and by the liberality of heart and hand of many of Th}^ 
servants, in the years to come, may the cherished plans of the 
founders of this University become a reality. And for those 
who are and are to be students here we ask Thy blessing, that 
they may be both perceive and know what things they ought 
to do and may have power faithfully to fulfill the same. They 
are face to face with the solemn future of their lives. May they 
resolve to grow in all Christian manhood, in all courtesy of 
manners, in all strength and purity of conduct, and in all dili- 
gence and perseverance of study, so that they may be fitted for 
that work in this world which Thou shalt give them to do. 

We give Thee humble and hearty thanks for the blessings 
of the past, for the labor and liberality that have founded and 
sustained this University, for all who have been its benefactors, 
for all who have been trained here and have honored it in their 
successful lives. 

Have us now and forevermore in Thy holy keeping, and 
open unto us in the end the gates of everlasting life, through Thy 
son Jesus Christ, our L,ord. Amen. 



Overture — "Erl King," by Gartland's Orchestra. 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF THE STUDENTS 

BY 

]\Ir. Harlan Moore, President of Senior Class. 



Mr. Chairma7i, Ladies and Gentlemen^ and Fellow Students : 

A few more than a dozen miles to the south of Ithaca there 
stands in those lovely hills a majestic ridge, sloping rapidly to 
the east and to the west. Known to the dwellers in that locality 
as the "Divide, ' ' it forms for the waters of Southern New York 
a grand and stately water-shed. Whenever it rains, the drops 
of water falling to the one side are mingled with streams that, 
by cascades and caverned ways, seek the stormy Ontario ; borne 
thence by the rapid St. Lawrence to its frigid outlet they are 
carried northward, and frozen and lost in the barren ice-fields of 
the Arctics. But the drops falling to the right smoothly wend 
their way to the majestic Susquehanna ; flowing onward through 
fertile valleys and rich fields to the blue Chesapeake, laving the 
shores of fair Virginia, they are borne blessing and blessed of 
nature to the warm, sun-lit waters of the Southern Ocean. 

Just six month ago, the trustees of Cornell took a step 
that marks a decisive moment in the history of our Universit5^ 
With one accord they made choice of him who was to bear upon 
his shoulders the president's mantle. Did that choice fall, as 
it were, to the left ? Did it fall upon a man, the current of 
whose thoughts and administrative policy would flow in a di- 
rection harmful to the interests of this University ? Or did it 
fall to the right — upon a man, the outpourings of whose 
genius would bear the destinies of our Alma Mater to fields 
rich with the blessings of nature and of Nature's God? I need 
not answer that the Trustees have chosen well ; I need but say 
their choice fell upon JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN ! (Great 
applause.) And, Mr. President, were the choice of the Trus- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 9 

tees needful of student ratification, I can assure you from the 
depths of my heart that I voice the unanimous sentiment of 
the entire student body when I say, the trustees' action would 
have been our action and their choice is our choice ! 

We do not greet 5'-ou to-day, sir, as stranger to stranger ; 
as, for the past six years, your services have been rendered to 
Cornell, where already your efforts have given fame to her de- 
partment of philosophy. We rather congratulate you upon 
your promotion, while at the same time our most fervent pray- 
ers storm the battlements of heaven that its choicest blessings 
may forever rest upon you. 

It is indeed, ladies and gentlemen, a beautiful truth that 
succession to the presidency of Cornell University has been 
apostolic in its nature. It was Andrew Dickson White, whose 
interests as he now fills an honorable position abroad, are dear 
to every true Comellian's heart, — it was our first president who 
chose the second ; and it was through the efforts of the second 
that were first secured the ser^dces of the third. 

In passing, I desire to pay a tribute of grateful thanks to 
Charles Kendall Adams, the second president of our Univer- 
sit5^ We owe to him a debt of gratitude which no words can 
repay ; and in behalf of the students I would voice the spirit 
and letter of the words regarding him, which appear in resolu- 
tions adopted by our trustees : "His administration will be 
remembered in the history of Cornell University as equally im- 
portant to the interests of the institution and creditable to him- 
self ; and we tender to him as a scholar, as an educator, and as 
a man, the assurances of our sincere respect and regard, with 
our best wishes for his future success and happiness." 

This should indeed be a day of rejoicing ; a day of rejoicing 
because we know that Cornell's third president is in no wise 
inferior to his worthy predecessors ; and because we know that 
under his guidance is assured the continued prosperity of our 
beloved Alma Mater. 

We congratulate you, Mr. President, upon the manifold 
blessings that have attended you ; we congratulate you upon 
your past career, a fitting example for us to follow ; we congrat- 



lo Cornell University. 

ulate you upon your efforts as a preceptor, successful to the 
highest degree ; and we congratulate you upon your election 
to the presidency of this University, in truth a great Uni- 
versity, of a great state, of a great country. But while, sir, we 
congratulate the trustees upon their choice, and you upon being 
chosen, we, as students of the University, would congratulate 
ourselves upon being the chiefest recipients of this blessing. 
When we reflect that we are members of this great and progres- 
sive University, situated in the very heart of the Empire State, 
we are proud to be Cornellians ! When we look about us, see- 
ing these noble structures rearing their heads heavenward and 
firmly founded upon these beautiful hills, whereon the God of 
Nature hath lovingly laid His plastic hand, we are proud to be 
Cornellians ! But when we climb these hills and listen to the 
words of wisdom as they fall from the lips of our faculty, 
realizing that you, sir, are at their head, and that about us all is 
the strong right arm of our generous trustee body, — then, not 
only are we proud to be Cornellians, but we glory in the 
name ! 

As students under your presidency we pledge to 5'ou our 
hearty co-operation and support. The University's interests 
shall be our interests ; and our most earnest endeavors shall be 
directed toward advancing her policy along those lines of prac- 
tical progress so characteristic of her histor5^ And when we 
have laid aside our active duties here, and as Alumni have 
passed into the mystic future, our interest, I assure you, will 
continue unabated, our loyalt}^ to Alma Mater undiminished 
throughout our allotted lives. Then, indeed, will our love and 
devotion be strong and firm ; while to our ears no rhythm will 
be more harmonious, no music more sweet, than the words of 
our Universit)' anthem : 

"Far above Cayuga's water, 

With its waves of blue, 
Stands our noble Alma Mater, 

Glorious to view. 
Lift the chorus, 

Speed it onward, 
I/Oud her praises tell ; 

Hail to thee, our Alma Mater, 
Hail, all hail, Cornell ! " 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF THE ALUMNI 

BY 

Mr. Frank H. Hiscock, '75. 



Mr. President: 

In the name and behalf of a body of Alumni which is 
strong in numbers and serious in its aspirations and ambitions, 
and above all intensely loyal to its Alma Mater, I welcome you 
to the presidency of Cornell and wish you the full measure of 
success in its administration. 

The discharge of this pleasant part which has been as- 
signed me in these exercises has been all the more gratifying 
because it emphasizes again and afresh at this time for you and 
them the relation and interest which the Alumni have to and 
in the government of the University. 

A wonderfully short time has demonstrated beyond criti- 
cism or dispute the sound and enduring wisdom of the princi- 
ples and ideas upon which Cornell University was founded. It 
seems to me that no provision of its constitution was wiser 
or more far-sighted than that one which by giving them a lib- 
eral part in the management of its affairs tended to stimulate 
and at all times keep alive the active interest and attention of 
its Alumni. They have come to realize more fully each year that 
the privileges thus conferred upon them carry the corresponding 
duty of a wise and careful exercise and to appreciate, I trust, 
that to them this University has a right to look for material en- 
couragement and aid in the future. 

In speaking for them at this time, Mr. President, I feel 
that I may assure you, entirely avoiding exaggeration or mere 
aflfability of speech, that their entire confidence and absolute 
good will attend you to-day in your formal inauguration. 



12 Cornell University. 

They will watch your administration with a scrutiny be- 
gotteiT of the intense eagerness which they will feel for its un- 
qualified and lasting success. They very possibly may dijffer 
from and criticise it, in some of its details. They may at times 
even seem unreasonable and exacting, but I believe that 3^ou 
may upon the whole rest secure in the expectation of a fair and 
broad-minded judgment from the men and women who graduate 
from this University. 

It is at once your good fortune and peril that j'ou assume 
your office at this time. We stand at the, thus far, flood-tide 
of prosperity. The present hour is rich in the realization of the 
dreams and aspirations of the past. In fact we may well doubt 
if an}' one of those who labored upon the foundation of the Uni- 
versit}' or of those who watched them with friendh^ interest 
dared to really hope for the results which we see to-day. Even 
since it was felt that success had been actually attained the pro- 
gress has been wonderful. In 1884, President White, speaking 
to a meeting of the Alumni of Western New York, almost felt 
called upon to justify in some way his prophecy that the results 
of the next few years would exceed those of the ten 3'ears then 
closing. It w^as still more recently that we heard the venerable 
Dr. Wilson, speaking in behalf of the faculty, at the inaugura- 
tion of your predecessor, dwell with pride upon the fact that 
the number of students had reached six hundred and twelve. 

The University stands here in the foremost rank of univer- 
sities, representing in its beautiful buildings, in its multitude 
of students, in its body of earnest and able professors, the la- 
bors and triumphs of the past, and now we commit to 3'ou, in 
large measure, to answer, ' 'And what of the future ? ' ' 

Not forgetting that Cornell has now reached a position 
where not to progress is to retrograde ; that the brilliant and 
continuous advancement and enlargement of the past few j-ears, 
which make prosperity seem almost a matter of course, in fact 
increase enormously the demands upon resources and executive 
management, we still look with hopeful confidence to the suc- 
cessful answer by the results of your administration of the prob- 
lem cast upon it. We shall look to see each year a nearer ap- 



Inauguration of Prksident Schurman. 13 

proach to that complete University where all persons may pursue 
under the guidance of the ablest and best minds, through the 
broadest avenues, any and every branch of useful knowledge. 
And, in conclusion, to draw for the future a brief compar- 
ison with the past, which is so natural upon an occasion like 
this : Those who attended and graduated from this university 
in its earlier days cherish with a peculiar fondness and loyalty 
the memory of Cornell's first president. They may not at all 
times have agreed with him in every detail of university policy 
but by actually witnessing, and sometimes, to a small extent at 
least, by sharing in them, they learned to properly appreciate 
and value the unceasing, enthusiastic and unselfish struggles 
which he made for its success. His personal identity and in- 
fluence were always an inspiration to a more elevated manhood 
and womanhood, and to a broader and riper scholarship. You 
will appreciate, therefore, that I fill the limit of good wishes 
for your Presidency when I express the hope that as the basis 
and reward of its successful administration you may en- 
joy the same enthusiastic, personal loyalty and esteem from 
those who shall come here as did your first predecessor. Presi- 
dent White. 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF THE FACULTY. 

BY 

Professor George C. Caldwell. 



In the discharge of the duty that has been assigned to me 
b}' the Faculty, as its senior member, it is fitting that I should, 
first of all, extend to you, sir, the hearty welcome of those 
whom I represent on this occasion, to the new relationship in 
which 3'ou now stand to them. You are younger as actual age 
is counted, j'-ou are younger, too, in j^ears of membership of the 
Faculty-, than many of them ; moreover, it is but a few j^ears 
ago that you came to us from beyond the nation's border, a for- 
eigner. If for any of these reasons there might under anj- con- 
ditions be dissatisfaction with this promotion from out of the 
Facult}^ to the Presidency, such conditions do not exist here. I 
can assure j'ou, sir, if indeed any such assurance is needed, 
that the onlj^ feeling is that of most cordial good will towards 
3-ou on the part of all j^our former colleagues, and of confidence 
that your administration of your difl&cult office will redound to 
the credit and glory of the University, and of all who do their 
share in helping you. 

It cannot be questioned that it is the sacred dut}- of ever}' 
member of the Faculty, as well as of its President, to do his ut- 
most to maintain this cordiality. There cannot but be differ- 
ences of opinion in a body constituted as the Faculty of a large 
University is — every member of it supposed to be capable of 
passing sound judgment on questions at issue of which he knows 
all the bearings. Such men are not apt to be content unless 
they know the reasons for action affecting their interests. That 
3^ou, sir, on j^our part will meet each one of us fairlj- and open- 
ly on this ground, we have no doubt. On the other hand you 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 15 

have a right to expect on the part of the Faculty, where there 
are so many and such varied interests, contesting in a rivalry 
that should always be generous, a liberal measure of forbear- 
ance ; and that each one of us should be slow to let an unfa- 
vorable conjecture or opinion pass on into a conviction, and 
possibly open the way for unhappy disturbances of that har- 
mony in spirit and purpose, which is of such vital importance 
to the welfare of the University. 

As President of the University you hold many relations to 
the Faculty — as its presiding officer, its executive officer, its 
medium of communication with the Board of Trustees, besides 
sharing with it the work of instruction. Of all these functions 
belonging to your office, that one which places you between the 
Faculty and the Trustees may cost 3^ou as much anxious thought 
as any other. It is not to be supposed, we trust, that, because 
you stand officially in this relation, there is to be no direct 
communication between individual members of the Faculty and 
of the Board of Trustees, on subjects of mutual interest. That 
the members of these two governing bodies, both engaged in 
the same great work, should have no direct intercourse with 
each other about that work would be an unwise policy. But 
even with such intercourse freely held, a large part of the im- 
portant communications from the one body to the other, or from 
its individual members, must pass through your hands. The 
Faculty may justly expect that every such communication shall 
be faithfully and fairly presented ; and we are sure that a right so 
plain and equitable will be fully and cheerfully conceded by you. 

It is I may well say the misfortune of manj- of us to have 
to call upon the Trustees at stated times for large sums of 
money, not unfrequently running up into thousands of dollars 
annually. It is easy for the sum total of these requests to 
greatly exceed the capacity to meet them ; so there come to be 
arrayed on the one hand, year after year, these demands for 
more means, prompted by each petitioner's appreciation of the 
great need of his own department for additional equipment to 
provide for increasing numbers of students, or for a higher 
range of study ; and, on the other hand, the replies that less 



1 6 Cornell University. 

must be asked for, as there is not enough to go round ; and be- 
tween these opposing parties the President must stand, as be- 
tween the upper and the nether millstones, to attempt the 
impossibility of satisfying both. 

You may indeed, sir, have encouraged us to dream of the 
possibilities of our several departments, with an unlimited in- 
come ; but we know too well that it will be only castles in the 
air that we build on such expectations ; we know too well that 
this inadequac)'- of the supply to meet the want must always 
exist. Indeed it would not be well for the University if it were 
otherwise ; any department of its instruction that should stand 
still, unmindful of the possibilities ever before it for more and 
better work with larger means at command, would soon be left 
behind by other departments ever on the alert to grasp such 
possibilities and make the best of them ; a one-sided instead 
of a symmetrical growth would be the unfortunate result. 
Really disastrous would it be, on the other hand, if the treasury 
were not carefully guarded by its custodians against exhaustion ; 
a bankrupt University would be a mortification to its friends, 
deep beyond expression. 

In these times when new universities are opened on every 
hand, the competition becomes keener and keener for more men 
and women to come forward and make use of these new facili- 
ties for getting an education. But if the competition is to be for 
numbers mainly, with little regard for anything else, the result 
of all this activity will be but a poor gain to the country- ; there 
are empty seats enough already, I imagine, in many of our col- 
leges and so-called universities, if more room is all that is 
needed. 

But these new universities are often ably manned, as well 
as munificently endowed, and the competition is not for num- 
bers only ; able students are sought for, as well as able teach- 
ers for them ; the aim is to give a broader and a better educa- 
tion on these rich foundations ; and the older universities, 
whether like ourselves only just passing their majority, or 
hoary with old age, must grow in the best sense of the word, 
or else fall behind in this rivalry. 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 17 

The live university is always growing ; but growth is not 
necessarily in mere size ; a really live man may be growing, even 
though he long ago attained his full bodily stature — growing 
intellectually or morally, of which there may be no outward 
sign to the casual observer. So we maj^ grow, as a University, 
and so each department may grow, though the traveler on the 
opposite hill five years hence, or ten years hence, may count no 
more new buildings than he can count now, or the summary in 
the Register may show no more students year by year. 

The rate of progression in the sum total of the intellectual 
forces engaged in the work of the college or University 
shows what the growth is there that is of the best kind, rather 
than the increase in the mere weight of flesh and bones on the 
forms. That it will be your highest pleasure, sir, as President of 
this University to foster this higher growth, that which is of the 
kind most ardently to be desired, we of your Faculty are as- 
sured. 

One of the soundest manifestations of this growth is the 
quickening of the spirit of research. New knowledge must 
come out of our higher institutions of learning ; this is in re- 
ality one of the missions of these institutions, one that is too 
often lost sight of in the pride of mere numbers. This widen- 
ing of the scope of knowledge in these days often requires 
means and appliances which only a rich university can pro- 
vide ; just in proportion to its means will be the demand for 
new knowledge, that the world will make of each of these great 
centers of learning, of which Cornell is justly proud to be recog- 
nized as one. 

You are fortunate, sir, it seems to me, in beginning your 
administration with a University already so big that you can 
give your thoughts freely to the quality of the work done here, 
and let the number take care of itself of those who come to 
,do that work, day by day, in its class rooms, laboratories and 
workshops. There is no truly appreciative friend of the Uni- 
versity who would not be fullj^ satisfied if it made no more 
mere corporeal growth, provided that it should be alive with 
seekers for higher and higher culture, each succeeding year, and 



1 8 Cornell University. 

that from its private studies, its seminaries and laboratories 
there should come out its share of contributions to the world's 
knowledge, and from its workshops, draughting rooms, fields 
and gardens, its share of what goes to make human life safer 
and happier. 

That you, sir, will do all that in you lies to help this 
University to accomplish its part of this great work for the 
world, we happil}^ can have no doubt. 

The conditions under which you enter upon your adminis- 
tration here are in some important respects unique, so far as 
our own history is concerned. Our first President had to deal 
with a Faculty, with whose members he had for the most part 
only the slightest acquaintance ; furthermore, a new University 
was here launched into existence with important novel features 
in its purposes and methods, and with perhaps at least as many 
enemies as it had fi-iends. It must have been with no small de- 
gree of solicitude that President White took up the leadership 
along these untried paths and with untried men to support him. 
How much of anxious groping in the way there was in those 
first years of the University's life, only those who lived through 
them can realize. 

The next President assumed his office with the work of 
the University in successful operation along the lines laid 
down by his predecessor, a Faculty in sympathy with it, and at 
any rate many more friends than at the outset ; but, like his 
predecessor, he labored under the disadvantage of onty a slight 
acquaintance with the members of the Faculty. The success 
of these two administrations is now a matter of histor>^ The 
first President left the University and the particular educational 
principles that it represented, firmly established on a sound 
basis ; the second left it with a broader scope and a higher 
standard of education, and in a far more prosperous condition 
than when he came to it. 

For you, sir, the way is, we hope and believe, made easier 
than it was for them, in that you already know so well those 
who are to work with you, and with all the world our friends, 
for the further advancement of this University to a yet higher 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 19 

degree of material prosperity, and, better and more glorious 
than that, to raise it to a yet higher standard of educational 
work — higher work not only in all that relates to the making of 
more cultured men and women as the years roll by, but also of 
truer and better men and women. 

May your life and our lives be spared, and abounding 
health and strength be given us all, for many years of earnest, 
harmonious and happy effort together, for the accomplishment 
of such a noble purpose. 



REPLY TO THE ADDRESSES 

in behalf of the students, the alumni, and the 
faculty, by 

President Schurman. 



Fellow- students, Fellow-Graduates, Fellow- Teachei^s : 

I thank j^ou for your words of welcome, of kindly cheer, and 
of generous sympathy and confidence. Uttered not only with 
the grace of scholarship but with all the cordiality of friendship 
they have, I freely confess to you, gratified and moved me be- 
3'ond any power of description. A man is especially sensitive 
to the judgment of his peers ; and, with the exception of an earh' 
apprenticeship to business, my life, like yours, has been devoted 
to the things of the mind. But there is another reason wlij- I 
earnestly covet your good opinion. It is 3'ou who constitute 
the University ; in its essence you are the University'. 

The students are the final cause of its existence. My young 
fellow- workers we are all here for your sakes. And all we 
have and are is yours. Take hold then with all your organs 
on the life that environs 3^ou ; and let the thews of j-our minds 
be nourished and strengthened bj^ the truth on which spirit 
feeds. The variety of the intellectual life of Cornell Univer- 
sit}^ is itself a liberal education to those who know how to use 
it. Here, while learning ever3'thing of something, 3'ou may 
also learn something of everything. And with all j^our getting, 
get wisdom. Conduct is not merely three- fourths of life, as 
Matthew Arnold said ; it is the whole of life. And it is n\y 
eamest desire and prayer that Cornell University may go 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 21 

on to evolve a more perfect type of manhood, — a manhood 
which, shufSing off the animal coil and fulfilling the divine 
idea of man, shall attain to a sense of honor that feels a stain 
like a wound, to an integrity that will not palter with the 
truth, to a justice and kindliness which, in their ministrations, 
go out to meet the claims and needs of others, to a gentleness 
which is harsh with nothing but meanness and a tolerence that 
forgives everything except hypocrisy, and to a reverence and 
piety which transcending all the sublimities of Time go on to 
commune with the Spirit of L,ife and Truth and lyOve Eternal. 
Students of Cornell University ! this is your moral vocation. 
To keep it constantly before you is the highest duty of your 
President. 

And you, older sons and daughters of Alma Mater, I have 
heard your words with joy as I shall obey your summons with 
alacrity. The spirit of Cornell University is mine as fully as 
it is yours. And it bids us all work together for the liberal and 
and practical education of the youth of all classes and profes- 
sions of our people. I wish, however, to state, with all the 
emphasis I can command, that Alma Mater has now reached a 
point in her history beyond which further growth is impossible 
without the united and cordial support of her children. ' It is 
for you to consider how you can most effectually maintain the 
University which from this time on must be so largely ne- 
trusted to your keeping. Without you we can do nothing ; 
with your aid all things are possible. Alumni, I appeal to you 
because you are strong. Alumnae, I appeal to you because you 
are quick-witted. We need the help of both. A giant's work 
is before us. But through your heroism we shall triumph. 

Fellow-teachers, I desire to magnify our office. We are 
training minds. And, as Emerson most truly said, "the main 
enterprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the upbuild- 
ing of a man." Methods of education, like metaphysics, must 
be reconsidered by every generation. Therefore, besides teach- 
ing and investigating, you must shape our educational policies. 
And grave educational issues are now before you. Within the 
very general limits prescribed by the charter, you must deter- 



22 Cornell University. 

mine the constituents of a liberal culture and of a professional 
training, and fix their proper relation to each other. All culture 
should be humanistic and naturalistic at the same time ; but it 
is no easy matter to adjust the claims of each. The humanities 
are indispensable ; but the end is humanity : and it is at least 
an open question whether the English language and literature are 
not the most effective of all liberalizing disciplines. Cornell Uni- 
versity must settle all such questions on their own merits. As 
Goldwin Smith said at the foundation of the institution, it is for 
Cornell "to remain uninfluenced, either in the way of imi- 
tation or of antagonism by other educational institutions or 
ideas." Gentlemen of the Faculty, it is your privilege as it 
is your dut}^ to settle our educational problems in the waj^ j^ou 
think best. The President is your chairman ; he is the expon- 
ent of your ideas ; and the executor of your resolutions. But 
yours is the responsibility of framing the legislation he admin- 
isters. 

Gentlemen, I thank you all once more for your messages. 
Yet I do not misunderstand their import. You pledge co-oper- 
ation ; the work is still before us. You summon me to action ; 
in your strength I say, Forward ! 



Music — "The Tyrolean," bj^ the Orchestra. 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF THE TRUSTEES, 

BY THE 

Hon. Samuel D. Halliday. 



President Schurman : 

I cannot help on this occasion indulging in some reminis- 
cences. Twenty-four 5^ears ago while a student at this Univer- 
sity I became the owner of my first and only autograph album. 
That album contains three names. They are the names of 
three of those distinguised non-resident lecturers, who in the 
early history of our University did so much to inspire every- 
body connected with it. These names are, Louis Agassiz, 
James Russell Lowell and George William Curtis. They have 
all gone to their final home, and I have never allowed anybody 
else to profane that album by writing their names upon its 
pages. Curtis and Agassiz were present and took part in the 
inauguration of our first President. Last night I hunted up that 
old album. I found that Curtis and Agassiz had contented them- 
selves with simply writing their names, but over the signature 
of James Russell Lowell I found the following sentiment : 
"I do not wonder that Ulysses longed to return to Ithaca." 
That was written twenty-four years ago. It has been my good 
fortune to reside continuously since that time under the very 
eaves of Cornell and in that city to which every alumnus, like 
the ancient Ulysses, will always long to return. Since that time 
as a student, as an alumnus, as a trustee and as a citizen, I have 
watched the wonderful progress of our University and its 
growth in harmonious proportions from small beginnings until 
now, on the occasion of the inauguration of its third president, 
it seems to have become 

"One stupendous whole, 

Whose body nature is, and God the Soul." 

It is not fit or proper, for me, at least, on this occasion, to 
go in detail into the causes which have brought about this re- 
sult ; nor could I in the brief time alotted me do any kind of 
justice to the few honored members of our board during that 
time, both living and dead, who in more ways than one have 



24 Cornell University. 

done so much for this University. But while I am speaking for 
the trustees, I may be permitted briefly and in general words to 
speak to you, Mr. President, of them and about them. 

Somebody has somewhere laid down the following wise 
rule of action in governing bodies : "In essentials, unity ; in 
non-essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity." Nowhere 
has that rule of action been so thoroughly exemplified and fol- 
lowed than in the Board of Trustees of Cornell University. 
Differences have arisen. But these differences have been based 
on honest differences of judgment among those who are inde- 
pendent in thought, independent in speech and above all, inde- 
pendent in action, and underneath them all was alwa5^s to be 
found a common purpose to be loyal and true to the institution, 
whose interest it was their official and bounden duty to guard 
and protect. 

While I have thus spoken, boastfully perhaps, of the 
Board of Trustees of which I am a member, I desire now to 
contrast favorably my boasting, if such it be, with the extreme 
modesty of a comparatively young man, with whom you, Mr. 
President, are somewhat acquainted ; but whose merits I be- 
lieve 3^ou yourself do not yet fully appreciate. Last May he 
was suddenly and unexpectedly promoted to a very high and 
exalted position. When he was informed of that fact in the 
presence of the Board that promoted him, overwhelmed with 
the responsibility of his new position, he closed a few brief re- 
marks in the following modest, but to me almost immortal 
words : "I do not know," said he, — "I do not know whether 
I can succeed or not, but with God's help I will tr}\" 

lyCt me here and now make a prediction. That modesty, 
which is always an evidence of genuine worth, that subdued 
and earnest enthusiasm bom almost of inspiration, will make 
for this University a future greater even than its past. 

On behalf of the Board of Trustees I am authorized to ex- 
tend to you. President Schurman, their hearty greetings and 
cordial welcome to the Presidency of Cornell Universit}', and to 
assure you that all your efforts to promote its interests and ad- 
vance its glory will receive their hearty support. 



ADDRESS OF THE HON. HENRY W. SAGE, 
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, 

ON 

Presentation of the Charter and the Seal. 



Mr. President : 

In May last (1892) you were unanimously elected third Pres- 
ident of Cornell University to succeed Charles Kendall Adams. 
On this day of your formal inauguration it is my duty as chair- 
man of the Board of Trustees to deliver to your keeping the 
charter and the seal of the University. 

Twenty-four years have elapsed since real work under this 
charter began. These years have been pregnant with results, 
larger, broader and more far-reaching than most of us then 
living had good reason to anticipate. Years of trial, we have 
had, of poverty, of embarrassment, of labors without much 
seeming result, but God's hand has always been near us and 
with us and His inspiration has created faith much, caused 
works many, and out of these have come crowns of glorious 
fruitage. Our noble founder, Ezra Cornell, went to sleep be- 
fore this fruitage came, but he had planted the seed which pro- 
duced it. 

Our honored first president, Andrew D. White, tilled it 
twenty years with wisdom and care, leaving vigorous growth 
at the roots and the top. Our second president, Charles Ken- 
dall Adams, gave us seven years of his earnest life, and dur- 
ing those years were growth and expansion in all ways not be- 
fore known. 

Under the guidance of your predecessors in office the fac- 
ulty have always been able and efficient builders of a sound ed- 
ucation. From the beginning, the various Boards of Trustees 



26 Cornell University. 

have given labor without stint and without compensation, and 
their hands and their hearts, their faith and zeal have ever been 
constant promoters of the great work to which Cornell Univer- 
sity has been committed. 

A new era now dawns upon us. You, sir, succeed to 
larger duties and responsibilities than did your predecessors 
and their co-workers. What they built and established you 
have. What they lifted to present altitude you are to lift 
higher, ever higher. All are yours to strengthen where weak, 
to add to, to build broader, deeper, better. 

The labors of your office as President you begin to know 
are vast enough in themselves to create no small tax upon 
your powers. These are added to those already yours as Dean 
of the department of ethics and philosophy. Your function 
there of dealing with and teaching the higest problems of moral 
and intellectual action is greater than the presidency — higher 
than any known to me. 

I know the extreme modesty with which you have assumed 
these duties, and where you look for power to perform them 
all. May it be given to you in abundant measure, and may 
your administration of all the high trusts committed to your 
charge be crowned with success equal to your own highest as- 
pirations, and to the largest wants of Cornell University. 

I have the honor to invest you with the charter and seal. 



ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 

IN 

Accepting the Charter and the Seal. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees : 

I take from your hands these symbols of the office to which 
you have summoned me with mingled feelings of anxiety and 
confidence. As I think of the magnitude of the actual inter- 
ests of our University, and of the greater future to which the 
Cornell ideal points, I am oppressed by the share of responsi- 
bility you have put upon me in the management of its affairs. 
The office is one that makes diverse and onerous demands upon 
the incumbent ; and neither shall I escape mistakes nor you 
disappointments. The confidence that supports me is not, you 
will recognize, born of levity or even of want of foresight. It 
arises chiefly from my knowledge of what the Board of Trus- 
tees has achieved for Cornell University. In the management 
of her affairs you have made a record without parallel in the 
educational history of our country. The present and the future 
of the University are secure in the hands of men who have 
made the past illustrious. Gentlemen of the Board, you are 
my hope and my stay. As you were pleased to call me to the 
presidency by a unanimous vote, and as I have no desire or 
ambition but to carry out the measures you devise for the best 
interests of the University, I look for — and I desire now most 
earnestly to bespeak — not only your confidence and support, 
but even your patience, your forbearance, and your kindly 
judgment. You will find many, alas, too many, occasions for 
the exercise of these generous sentiments. But, if I should ever 
cease to be the object of them, I should not desire to be presi- 
dent. Fortunately, I have assurance of your attitude, not 



28 CoRNEivi. University. 

only in the manner of the election, but in the kindness and 
generosity with which j^our Board has always treated me. 
And so relying upon your support, I enter formally upon the 
new office. Maj'- the Spirit of Light and Truth whose cause 
we serve, guide and strengthen us ! 

The Cornell Glee Club then sang : 

The soldier loves his general's fame, 

The willow loves the stream, 
The child will love its mother's name, 

The dreamer loves his dream ; 
The sailor loves his haven pier, 

The shadow loves the dell, 
The student holds no name so dear 
As thy good name Cornell. 
We'll honor thee, Cornell, 
While breezes blow 
Or waters flow, 
We'll honor thee, Cornell. 

The soldier with his sword of might 

In blood may write his fame. 
The prince in marble columns white 

May deeply grave his name ; 
But graven on each student's heart 

There shall unsullied dwell, 
While of this world they are a part. 
Thy own good name, Cornell. 
We'll honor thee, Cornell, 
While breezes blow 
Or waters flow. 
We'll honor thee, Cornell. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



Mr. Chairman : 

Tlie institution wliich has summoned us to this 
day's ceremonial is almost if not quite the youngest 
member of the still too small fraternity of great 
American universities. The oldest sister has already 
celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
of her birth. The present year is the twenty-fifth 
since the opening of Cornell University. For our 
years, the oldest American colleges show decades ; 
and beside the venerable antiquity of their European 
models we are but of yesterday. We can make no 
pretense to the dignity of age, or to hereditary influ- 
ence, or to sacred tradition, or to that subdued and 
statuesque beauty of countenance which is bom of 
the travail of many generations. It may, however, 
be suspected that the modern scholar, who nourishes 
his spirit on the rich legacies of remote generations, 
is, in consequence of a natural association of ideas, 
under constant temptation unduly to exalt the past 
and to admire what is old simply because it is old. 
This, however, was not the habit of that wonderful 
people who were the authors, and who continue to be 
the unapproachable models, of scholarship and liberal 
culture. Youth was the ideal aspiration, the dearest 
yearning of the Greeks, from the time their litera- 



30 Cornell University. 

ture opeued with the story of the youthful Achilles 
till their national history closed with the conquests of 
the youthful Alexander. Cornell, I admit, has not 
the stately splendor of those Old World seats of learn- 
ing which thrill and almost pain the unaccustomed 
sense of the American traveler. But if Cornell lacks 
the transfiguring beauty of age she wears the fresh 
glory of a vigorous prime. Hers is the portion of 
youth — of youth with its lofty faith, its unquenchable 
hope, its superabounding energy, its tingling sense 
of activity, — of youth that counts not itself to have 
attained, that lives not on the fading record of the 
past, but on the promise of all the unrevealed and 
splendid future. To have lived is good ; but it is 
better to feel the pulses now throbbing with the un- 
tamed strength of fresh and unexhausted life. 

In tracing the origin of Cornell University we go 
back to the year 1862. The date stands a poor chance 
of recognition just now with the Columbian Exposi- 
tion before us and a surfeit of national centennials 
behind. Yet that year marks the fulfillment of the 
moral and intellectual promise of the nation's glori- 
ous youth. The Declaration of Independence, the 
noblest expression ever given to the rights of man, 
remained a mere form of words till Lincoln announced 
in 1862 the Declaration of Bmancipation. In the 
terrible 3^ears which followed the message was re-writ- 
ten in blood ; but through Lincoln's first draft, which 
is now among the treasures of our own state library, 
the nation was purged of the foul stain of slavery and 
consecrated forever to freedom. The enslavement of 
man is a survival of barbarism ; civilization, by the 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 31 

potency of science, makes a thrall of nature herself. 
The genius of Lincoln rose to the height of the great 
occasion. With one hand he smote the fetters of the 
slave, and with the other he joined in a splendid effort 
to subjugate nature. On the second of July, 1862, 
while the announcement of emancipation was still on 
his desk, he signed the act of congress, donating pub- 
lic lands for the establishment of colleges of agricul- 
ture and mechanic arts. This act had been introduced 
into congress by the Hon. Justin S. Morrill, who after 
the lapse of a generation, still adorns the senate and 
whose name will live with later generations among 
the noblest and wisest of our statesmen. The famous 
Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the North- 
west territory had declared it to be the duty of the 
nation to support education, and it reserved public 
lands for the maintenance of schools and colleges. 
Speaking generally, there were set aside in each new 
state thereafter one or more townships for higher edu- 
cation, and in each township one section for common 
school education. It was the spirit of this wise na- 
tional policy which begot the Morrill Land Grant. 
The greatest educational measure since the passage 
of the Ordinance, it is a splendid embodiment of the 
nation's long-cherished ideal of public instruction as 
the contemporaneous announcement of Kmancipation 
was the perfect fulfillment of our oldest charter of 
personal liberty. 

The Morrill act provided for a donation of public 
land to the several states, each state to receive thirty 
thousand acres for each senator and representative it 
sent to congress. States not containing within their 



32 Cornell University. 

own borders public land subject to sale at private en- 
try received land scrip instead. But this land scrip 
tlie recipent states were not allowed to locate within 
the limits of any other state or of any territory of the 
United States. The act laconically directed "said scrip 
to be sold by said states." The proceeds of the sale, 
whether of land or scrip, in each state were to form a 
perpetual fund, the capital of which should remain 
forever undiminished or, if diminished or lost, should 
be replaced by the state. This fund being invested 
in safe stocks yielding not less than five per cent, up- 
on their par value, the interest was to be inviolably 
appropriated by each state to the endowment and sup- 
port of at least one college for promoting "the liberal 
and practical education of the industrial classes in the 
several pursuits and professions of life." The lead- 
ing object of the college was declared to be the teach- 
ing of "such branches of learning as are related to 
agriculture and the mechanic arts," but other scien- 
tific and classical studies" might be embraced in the 
curriculum and the subject of "military tactics" was 
specifically prescribed. 

Such are the principal features of the college 
land grant act. It is the only congressional measure 
dealing with education which applies to every state 
in the Union. And it must be pronounced worthy of 
this unique distinction whether we consider the terms 
of the act itself or the far-reaching and splendid re- 
sults it has produced in the educational life and work 
of the last quarter of a century. It created thirty- 
three colleges and infused new life into half as many 
more. And these institutions, which the liberality 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 33 

of the nation animated, have become the objects of 
the munificence of individuals and of the bounty of 
the states. A careful estimate shows that the dona- 
tion of congress has been doubled by the grateful 
offerings of its beneficiaries. The states have ten- 
derly cared for the seed planted by the Union. And 
this was obviously the intention of congress. In- 
deed the Morrill act, though national in origin, is in 
the scope of its provisions and in the mode of its ad- 
ministration less a system of national than of state 
education. The state pays out of its own treasury 
the taxes and other expenses incident to holding and 
selling the land and the cost of managing and in- 
vesting the proceeds. The state is under obligation 
to maintain the capital of the fund forever undimin- 
ished. The state has supervision and control of the 
teaching, which is to be "in such manner as the leg- 
islatures of the states may respectively prescribe." 
And the state has one other duty — or shall I say 
privilege — which though not mentioned in set terms 
is clearly implied, and which has been performed by 
nearly all the states in the Union. I mean the duty 
of making appropriations in aid of the college found- 
ed on the land grant. And congress specifically 
invites and even compels such co-operation by for- 
bidding the use of any portion of the congressional 
grant, or of the interest thereon, for the purchase, 
erection, or repair of any building or buildings. 
The state in accepting the gift accepted the condi- 
tions. And for the effective teaching of the sciences 
and branches of learning contemplated in the Morrill 
act buildings and laboratories costing millions of 



34 Cornell University. 

dollars are nowadays indispensable in any large in- 
stitution. The days when science could take airy 
nothing for its local habitation are gone forever ; that 
insubstantial element, however inflated, serves no 
lonsfcr to even make a name ! 

But the college land act, besides rall3dng the sev- 
eral states to the support of higher education, set forth 
a new and indeed a revolutionary conception of the 
constituent studies of a college curriculum and of the 
persons to whom it was addressed. Remember that 
in 1862 the universally accepted type of higher edu- 
cation was the four years' course of the classical col- 
leee. This course included mathematics and some- 
times physics (which, however, was taught from a 
text book !), but its leading aim was to impart a lib- 
eral culture by means of the study of the ancient lan- 
guages of Greece and Rome. But for causes which 
I need not stop to recite, classical scholarship never 
flourished widely or struck deep roots in the soil of 
the new world. English ourselves, our minds have 
derived their sustenance almost exclusively from na- 
tive sources. If we went be3^ond these, the French 
interested us more than the Romans ; and by degrees 
the Germans have taken the place which the Greeks 
never filled. But neither this essentially indigenous 
character of American culture nor this new field of lin- 
guistic scholarship found the slightest recognition in 
the classical colleges. And they were still less re- 
sponsive, if that were possible, to another and a far 
greater intellectual revolution. Of all occurrences 
in history since the invention of writing none has 
witnessed more clearl}^ to the godlike qualit}^ of the 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 35 

human mind, and none tias liad more stupendous 
consequences for man's life on earth, than the dis- 
covery by the searching light of modern science of 
the laws and processes of the material universe. To 
the modern student, nature always an object of won- 
der, shows herself also the embodiment of law, of 
order, of rational intelligence. Such knowledge is 
not only elevating and stimulating to our spirits, it 
is a powerful instrument in our physical lives. By 
means of it man has subjugated nature, so that air 
and water and steam, nay, those subtle but more 
potent agencies which the eye has not seen or the 
touch felt, have been harnessed to bear our burdens, to 
carry our messages, and in general to minister to all 
our bodily wants. Science is the good angel of the mod- 
ern world. As generally happens in such cases, it came 
unobserved of the learned and the wise. But though 
the cloistered scholar scarce heard the rustle of its ap- 
proach, the common people saw the splendid vision 
and rejoiced. It gave new dignity to their lives and 
pursuits. Shut out from the schools of learning which 
were consecrated to the minister, the doctor, and the 
lawyer, the common people carried on their humble 
pursuits by immemorial rule of thumb. I know there 
are those who hold that the thumb has redeemed us 
from the bar of simian ancestry. All honor to this an- 
cient badge and organ of humanity ! But whatever the 
beginning, I am sure that we shall all agree that the 
goal is the rule of mind — the suffusion of life by a 
moral and rational intelligence. To this end the act 
of congress of 1862 was a rare and well-timed instru- 
ment. Its fundamental idea, as Senator Morrill 



36 Cornell TJniversity. 

aftenvard declared, was "liberal and larger education 
to larger numbers." Its beneficiaries were not the 
select classes contemplated by the ancient colleges, 
the gentlemen of sedentary professions but the 
masses of the people who with no advantage of 
higher instruction, but engaged actively in industrial 
pursuits and professions, were carrjdng on the larger 
part of the world's business. To these "larger num- 
bers" the act offered a "larger education." The civil 
war, then in the direst j^ear of its protracted course, 
suggested one requirement of the curriculum — mili- 
tary tactics. And our experience shows, as Milton 
long ago saw, that a moderate amount of military 
drill conduces markedly to the health and physical 
development of the students, while at the same time 
it fits them in case of war for immediate ser\dce 
in the defense of their country. The leading ob- 
ject of the land grant, however, was "to teach such 
branches of learning as are related to agriculture 
and the mechanic arts," though "without excluding 
other scientific and classical studies." This language 
is clear enough, though it has often been misquoted 
if not misunderstood. All agree that the grant Avas 
not made primarily for the benefit of the old educa- 
tion, though on the other hand the old education was 
not excluded from the scope of its fostering influence. 
But it is generally assumed that the object of the 
new college was to teach agriculture and the me- 
chanic arts. Now I have no doubt that the intention 
of the legislators was to promote better farming and 
better manufacturing. But the function assigned, and 
wisel}'- assigned, to the colleges was to teach all those 



Inauguration of President Schurman, 37 

brandies of learning whicti are related to agriculture 
and the mechanic arts. This program embraces, be- 
sides mathematics, all physical and natural science. 
Take out languages, literature, philosophy, history, 
and political science and there is no branch of knowl- 
edge (professional training apart) taught in the great- 
est university in the world which is not prescribed 
for the colleges created by the Morrill land act. And 
the end of this comprehensive curriculum is ''to pro- 
mote the liberal and practical education of the indus- 
trial classes in the several pursuits and professions 
of life." 

''Liberal and larger education to larger num- 
bers !" Such was the commission given by congress 
to the states in endowing them with grants of public 
lands. In the execution of this trust the State of 
New York was hampered by great and almost insu- 
perable obstacles. For its distributive share it re- 
ceived land scrip to the amount of nine hundred and 
ninety thousand acres. The munificence of the en- 
dowment awakened the cupidity of a multitude of 
clamorous and strangely unexpected claimants. Never 
surely was a great state so much embarrassed in 
making the greatest good of so great a gift. Heaven 
forbid that I should call from oblivion the jealousies, 
the wranglings, the indecent tactics of the despoilers. 
One thing, however, let us never forget. If the 
princely domain granted to the State of New York by 
congress was not divided and frittered away, we owe 
it in great measure to the foresight, the energy, and 
the splendid courage of a few generous spirits in the 
legislature of whom none commanded greater re- 



38 Cornell University. 

spect or exercised more influence than Senator An- 
drew Dickson White, the gentleman who afterwards 
became first president of Cornell University, and who 
now, returned to his first love, holds for the second 
time the dignity of Minister Plenipotentiary of the 
United States at one of the great imperial courts of 
Europe. 

But the all-compelling force which prevented the 
dispersion and dissipation of the bount}^ of congress 
was the generous heart of Bzra Cornell. While rival 
institutions clamored for a division of the "spoils," 
and political tricksters played their base and desper- 
ate game, this man thought only of the highest good 
of the State of New York, which he loved with the 
ardor of a patriot and was yet to serve with the hero- 
ism of a martyr. Mr. Chairman, in entering upon 
the presidency of Cornell University I covet earnest- 
ly the best gift of a baptism with the spirit of the 
Founder. On this solemn occasion piety demands a 
votive offering : and, here, by the altar sacred to the 
memor}^ of Ezra Cornell, I humbly dedicate myself 
to the service of those high ends for the achievement 
of which he established this university. Sir, this 
vow is a digression from my theme, though not, you 
will believe me, a deviation by a hair's breadth, from 
my thought and intention. When the legislature of 
the State of New York was called upon to make some 
disposition of the congressional grant, Ezra Cornell 
sat in the senate. A man of striking presence, tall, 
muscular, of rugged features, with high cheek bones, 
a firm-set mouth, a strong but unruffled brow, he 
looked out upon the world with a steady eye of de- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 39 

liberate blue, wearing always a grave, almost stern 
expression of countenance, and showing a reticence 
and coldness of manner wbicli strangers took for in- 
grained hardness but which friends knew to be the 
superficial mask of kindness and charity unexampled. 
A pious man, he held converse with the realms of 
faith and imagination, not in any conventional way, 
but with the fruitful inspiration that goodness and in- 
telligence, to which our race is called, must ultimate- 
ly triumph in the world. Accordingly he lived much 
in the future ; and all who knew him agree that he 
possessed a miraculous gift of foresight — a power of 
divination that illuminated the foreground of his work 
with the light of its distant, still uncreated perspec- 
tive. A courageous, independent soul, he was as pa- 
tiently persevering and inflexible as he was restlessly 
active. Already verging towards sixty, he had known 
in the long course of his life many varieties of voca- 
tion and many vicissitudes of fortune. Farmer, pot- 
ter, carpenter, mechanician, engineer and man of busi- 
ness, he had stretched our first telegraph line from 
Baltimore to Washington when Morse and his asso- 
ciates had failed ; and full of faith in the new inven- 
tion, he had, undaunted by sickness, by disaster, and 
by overwhelming debt, poured the electric current in- 
to the great Northwest, though capital shrank terri- 
fied from the enterprise, and not a dollar could be 
raised in the great city which to-day, the seat of the 
World's Fair, pulsates with telegrams from every 
quarter of the globe. Enriched beyond all expecta- 
tion by the consolidation of his scattered lines into 
the "Western Union," he had devoted himself, in the 



40 Cornell University. 

manner of an ancient patriarch, to the service of his 
fellow citizens and his conntry. A sublime figure 
anywhere, he seemed to the historian Fronde the 
most surprising and venerable object he had seen in 
America. He ministered to the poor and needy ; he 
cheered the sick and weary on distant battle-fields ; 
he established, on the most liberal basis, a free pub- 
lic library in Ithaca ; he strove zealously for the im- 
provement of agriculture ; and when his fellow citi- 
zens summoned him to the trust he undertook the 
high responsibilities of legislation, first as a member 
of the assembly and afterwards as a member of the 
senate. Proud of his state he served her with the 
fidelity and zeal of an ancient Roman. Of his minor 
legislative achievements I shall not speak. One act, 
however, has made his name as immortal as the state 
it glorified. By a gift of half a million dollars (a vast 
sum in 1865, the last year of the war!) he rescued 
for the higher education of New York the undivided 
grant of congress ; and with the united endowments 
he induced the legislature to establish, not merely a 
college of applied science but a great modem univer- 
sity — "an institution," according to his own admirable 
definition, "where any person can find instruction in 
any study." It was a high and daring aspiration to 
crown the educational system of our imperial state with 
an organ of universal knowledge, a nursery of every 
science and of all scholarship, an instrument of liberal 
culture and of practical utility to all classes of our peo- 
ple. This was, however, the end ; and to secure it Ezra 
Cornell added to his original gift new donations of 
land, of buildings, and of money. He approved himself 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 41 

an educational reformer and practical philanthropist 
who came to serve the state ; but though we who see 
the fulfillment recognize the sanity and purity of his 
dream, the men of his own time, if they did not think 
him visionary, accused him of planning to rob the 
state" and mulcted him twenty-five thousand dollars 
for the patriot's privilege of giving half a million. 

Libel and contumely is the reward the world 
gives its benefactors. Ezra Cornell endured the com- 
mon lot of these exalted spirits. But the congres- 
sional grant was saved from partition ; and the people 
of New York saw a new type of university arise in 
their midst, — the first in the history of education, — 
an institution embracing the entire range of human 
knowledge and attainment and opening its doors to 
young men (and women too) who craved the light 
and power of intelligence for any purpose whatever, 
whether to live or to make a living ; — they saw, in a 
word, the beginnings of a People's University. 

But one danger threatened this latest birth of 
time. The act of congress donating land scrip re- 
quired the states to sell it. The markets were imme- 
diately glutted. Prices fell. New York was selling 
at an average price of fifty cents an acre. Her princely 
domain would bring at this rate less than half a mil- 
lion dollars 1 Was the splendid donation to issue in 
such disaster ? If it could be held till the war was 
over, till immigration opened up the Northwest, it 
would be worth five times five hundred thousand dol- 
lars ! So at least thought one far-seeing man in the 
State of New York. And this man of foresight had 
the heart to conceive, the wisdom to devise, and the 



42 Cornell University. 

courage to execute — he alone in all the states — a 
plan for saving to his state the future value of the 
lands donated b3^ congress. Ezra Cornell made that 
wonderful and dramatic contract with the State of 
New York ! He bound himself to purchase at the 
rate of sixty cents per acre the entire right of the 
commonwealth to the scrip, still unsold ; and with the 
scrip, thus purchased by him as an individual he 
agreed to select and locate the lands it represented, 
to pa}^ the taxes, to guard against trespasses and de- 
fend from fires, to the end that within twenty years 
when values had appreciated he might sell the land 
and turn into the treasury of the State of New York 
for the support of Cornell University the entire net 
proceeds of the enterprise. In the peaceful annals of 
history I know no grander act of patriotism and of 
statesmanship. Within a few years Kzra Cornell had 
located over half a million acres of superior pine land 
in the Northwestern states, principally in Wisconsin. 
Under bonds to the State of New York to do the 
state's work he had spent about $600,000 of his own 
cash to carry out the trust committed to him by the 
state, when, alas, in the crisis of 1874, fortune and 
credit sank exhausted and death came to free the 
martyr-patriot from his bonds. 

The seven years that followed were the darkest 
in our history. Even at this day the official reports 
of the board are more moving than any tragedy. It 
was the struggle of brave men against impending 
ruin and appalling disaster. With the consent of the 
state the board of trustees had taken the lands loca- 
ted by Ezra Cornell, assumed his obligations, and 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 43 

bound themselves to carry out his contract. It was a 
period of great commercial and financial depression. 
There was no demand for land. On the other hand, 
nearly all the available funds of the university were 
in the land grant. Up to June, 1 881, the proceeds 
from the sale of the lands were less than the cost of 
carrying the lands ; and the cost had reached the 
enormous figure of a million dollars. The very ex- 
istence of the university was in danger. The num- 
ber of students fell to 320. There was no money to 
pay even the beggarly salaries the professors nomin- 
ally received. With debt at the door, and bankruptcy 
not far off, it was no wonder that a majority of the 
board was willing to sell the lands for a million dol- 
lars. But as it is written, "those who believe shall 
not make haste." And there presided over the delib- 
erations of the board a man who to the gifts of su- 
perior judgment, imagination, enthusiasm and con- 
viction added the acquirement of a great practical 
experience in the management of pine lands. In full 
view of inevitable catastrophe this leader and coun- 
selor set his face like flint against the sale of the lands. 
You, sir, were the Fabius who saved the university ! 
Captain of our salvation, all hail ! Kzra Cornell was 
our founder ; Henry W. Sage followed him as wise 
master-builder. The edifices, chairs, and libraries 
which bear the name of "Sage" witness to your later 
gifts : but though these now aggregate the princely 
sum of $1,250,000, your management of the university 
lands has been your greatest achievement. From these 
lands, with which the generosity and foresight of Bzra 
Cornell endowed the university, there have been 



44 Cornell University. 

netted under your administration, not far short of 
$4,000,000, with over 100,000 acres still to sell. 

Ezra Cornell's contract with the state was for 
twenty years. It expired August 4, 1886, when a ten 
years' extension was granted by the state. The trust 
will be closed in 1896. And when the commonwealth 
receives the report of the trustees, I think she will 
reward a generous "Well Done" to Ezra Cornell and 
the men who succeeded to his obligations. Never 
was a great trust more faithfully, more generously, 
and more brilliantly administered. Let me by a com- 
parison bring home to your minds the nature of this 
really wonderful achievement. The grant of land 
made by Congress under the Morrill act to the several 
states and territories amounted to 9,600,000 acres, of 
which the share of New York was 990,000 acres. The 
gross receipts from the sale of this land — for it has 
nearly all been sold, and what is unsold may be eval- 
uated — will aggregate $15,900,000, of which between 
$6,000,000 and $7,000,000 must be credited to the 
State of New York. In other words, the State of New 
York with one-tenth of the entire grant of land has 
realized from three-eighths to one-half of the entire 
proceeds. The price per acre, realized from the lands 
belonging to New York State is about $7 ; it is $1 for 
the lands belonging to all the other states of the 
Union. The New England States sold their lands at 
an average of 61 cents per acre ; the Middle states, 
(New York excepted) at 56 cents ; and the Southeni 
states at 89 cents. Of all the states only eight be- 
sides New York succeeded in obtaining as much as 
the regular government price of $1.25 per acre for their 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 45 

land ; and these eight were states in which public lands 
were open to entry within their own borders. But 
even the most foninate of these highly favored states 
sold its lands at a price per acre much lower than 
that received for the New York lands. These latter, it 
is true,when managed by the state, itself, did not bring 
more than the price realized by the other Middle and 
the New England states. Their enhanced value was 
created by the wise management of Ezra Cornell and 
the trustees of the university. It is no part of the do- 
nation of the Union or of the grant of the state, which 
as the courts have decided, amounts to only $603,000. 
Was I not justified in saying that when in 1896 
the trustees of Cornell University come to render to 
the state an account of their stewardship, the record 
will be one of which all New Yorkers may well be 
proud ? Where else can you find an example of such 
splendid financiering ? And the university making 
the best use of the talents entrusted to it by the state 
has thereby stimulated and encouraged private boun- 
ty. Its friends have, in general, been business men, 
who, desiring to make the most of their money, felt 
that there could be no better investment than Cornell 
University. Is not this true of Henry W. Sage and 
his sons, of John McGraw, of Andrew D. White, of 
Hiram Sibley, of Daniel B. Fayerweather, of Jennie 
McGraw-Fiske, and of the two gracious ladies who 
have just presented us with the Moak law library in 
memory of Judge Boardman ? Their gifts, combined 
with the net receipts from the sale of lands, carry the 
value of our aggregate property, exclusive of lands 
still unsold, beyond $8,000,000. Of this nearly 
$6,000,000 is in the form of productive funds, and the 



46 Cornell University. 

residue in buildings and eqiiipments. The university 
estate embraces 270 acres. We use for purposes of 
instruction sixteen buildings, eighteen laboratories, 
and six seminary rooms. Our income from all sources 
for the current year is about $500,000. We have over 
1600 students and nearly 150 professors and instruc- 
tors. Our curriculum, with the exception of courses 
in medicine and theology, is so broad and compre- 
hensive that it may safely challenge comparison with 
the best in the world. If I may single out one part 
of our material equipment, I do not hesitate to say 
that our library building, with which also was donated 
an endowment yielding $15,000 for the annual 
purchase of books, is unapproached by any other 
university on this continent. And this crowning 
work, like the university itself, is a victory snatched 
from apparently inevitable defeat. Cornell Univer- 
sity is an embodied miracle. It has shot up a luxu- 
riant growth out of a soil of impossibilities in the 
short space of a quarter of a century. When the au- 
thorities of New York come here in 1896 to examine 
into the administration by Cornell University of the 
grant of land conferred by congress upon this state, 
our voucher will be the institution itself, and we shall 
proudly say Sz vioiiunientum rcquiris circmnspice ! 

Look now upon the other side of the picture. 
New York, among all the states, rejoices, thanks to 
the trustees of this university, in a brilliant and 
uniquel}^ successful administration of the great trust 
committed to us by congress in the interests of high- 
er education. But the very splendor of its achieve- 
ment has entailed consequences highly injurious and 
even disastrous to the continued efficiency of our uni- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 47 

versity. Of these baleful consequences I will men- 
tion two in the hope and prayer that their blighting 
influences may henceforth be counteracted and an- 
nihilated. 

In the first place we suffer from the popular im- 
pression that Cornell University is fabulously rich. 
A friend of mine not long ago signalized his advent 
to the control of a great bank by writing ojQf one mil- 
lion dollars of bad debts. Confidence was shaken. 
Stock fell from 124 to 116. But as always happens 
when the truth is spoken, confidence speedily recov- 
ered from the first shock ; and the stock of that par- 
ticular bank is now selling it at 145. Bver since your 
honorable board, much to my surprise, made me a par- 
taker in the high trust of administering the affairs of 
Cornell University, I have been oppressed by my 
share of so great a responsibility ; and deeply conscious 
of the limitations of my own natural ability I have 
cast about with more than common pains to discover 
what one so poorly qualified but so well disposed 
might contribute to the noble undertaking with which 
the state has charged us. Those who have hitherto 
been active in our affairs might, I knew, be relied on 
for the proper execution of our trust. But one duty 
summoned me too. I determined to take the public 
into our confidence, and to lay before the people of 
the commonwealth we serve, a true picture of the 
affairs of Cornell University. In obedience to this 
resolution I have troubled you with figures, and more 
are to follow. You know what our wealth is, and 
what portion is fixed capital and what productive. 
You know what our income is. But you do not know 



48 CoRNELi. University. 

the calls made upon it even for tlie maintenance on 
its present basis of the educational work we already 
have in hand. I say nothing here of additions and 
enlargements, which indeed are imperative, because I 
am to treat of them in another connection. At this 
point I desire to state, without going into details, that 
Cornell University is not able to meet the obligations 
already incurred for the prosecution of work already 
undertaken. Measured by income she is rich, as men 
estimate the wealth of universities ; though for my 
own part I should say that to cultivate properly all 
the intellectual elements of our civilization which 
ought to be represented in a modern People's Univer- 
sity, she would not be rich with quadruple her in- 
come. But I do not wish to measure our resources 
by future calls upon them. They are inadequate to 
our present needs ; worse still, they are inadequate 
to our present obligations. Cornell University is poor 
and needy. I wish this could be gainsaid. I wish it 
were rhetorical pathos. But it is steely fact. The 
board of trustees yesterday, because there was no help 
for it, adopted the report of the committee on appropria- 
tions. I well remember how at the first meeting of that 
committee (of which I have the honor to be chairman) 
a blood-curdling chill came over me when, after cutting 
down all appropriations to an absolute minimum, sav- 
ing $io here and $i there, we discovered that our total 
appropriations were just $36,000 in excess of our in- 
come. But there was no help for it, and so the matter 
stands. The myth of Cornell's superabounding wealth 
will,Isuppose,notstandthe shock ofthis annual deficit! 
And so I scarcely regret it ; for with this illusion dis- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 49 

pelled we shall meet, as in the past, so in the future, 
wise and benevolent men — with eyes fixed on the 
after ages — who for the good of the commonwealth, 
the nation, and humanity, will desire to make invest- 
ments in the everlasting endowments of Cornell Uni- 
versity. For one I have no anxiety, no fear. The 
heart behind American wealth is at bottom generous 
and discerning ; and so long as money can foster in- 
telligence, that heart will not suffer our civilization 
to become a prey to ignorance, brutishness, and stupid 
materialism. No one knows better than the million- 
aire that man lives not by bread alone. And when it 
becomes generally understood that Cornell is not en- 
compassed by a forbidding mountain of gold, streams 
of private benevolence may be expected to flow hith- 
er under the constraining influence of a body of this 
importance, — a body which, as it is the educational, 
is also the geographical centre of our commonwealth. 
The state ! This brings me to the second subject 
for lamentation. Ezra Cornell and his successors, as 
trustees of New York, put into the management of 
the educational land grant such a wealth of patriot- 
ism, generosity, and matchless executive ability, that 
the state, dazzled I suppose by the result they created, 
has itself done nothing. Not one cent of its own mon- 
ey has ever been given by the State of New York to Cor- 
nell University. This indifference of the common- 
wealth is as unique as the success of the trustees. 
Elsewhere, if little was realized from the congressional 
grant, much was and is given by the state. In fact, 
I find that, with two or three insignificant exceptions, 
every other state in the Union makes appropriations, 



50 Cornell University. 

annual or special, or both, and in many cases very 
large appropriations, in aid of tlie institution wliich 
received tliat state's share of the bounty of congress. 
And an unusual liberality is practiced by those states 
which, instead of establishing special colleges, as- 
signed their lands to large universities. But this im- 
perial State of New York, which has the largest of all 
these universities, has given it up to this date abso- 
lutely nothing. I say "up to this date ;" for when the. 
people of our commonwealth understand all the facts 
of the case I am sure they will not suffer the contin- 
uance of this unparalleled, not to say discreditable, 
singularity. 

Cornell University was called into existence to 
serve the State of New York. The people of this com- 
monwealth are its authors, its patrons, its proprietors, 
and its beneficiaries. The larger part of its endow- 
ment has been derived from the lands granted to the 
state by congress. For certain legal purposes two dis- 
tinct trusts have been established of the funds real- 
ized by the sale of these lands. One, known as "The 
College Land Scrip Fund," was formed from the pur- 
chase money received by the state for the sale of the 
lands. This fund, which is held by the comptroller 
of the state, now amounts to $473,400 ; and when the 
lands are all sold there will be added $129,600, mak- 
ing a total of $603,000. The other trust was created 
by the gift of Ezra Cornell and the profits subse- 
quently made by the university on the lands he pur- 
chased from the state. It is designated "The Cornell 
Endowment Fund," and at present falls little short of 
$4,200,000. By a recent decision of the Supreme 



Inauguration op Preside;nt Schurman. 51 

Court of the United States, ajB&rming tlie decision of 
the Court of Appeals of our own state, it was decided 
that "The Cornell Endowment Fund" belonged abso- 
lutely to Cornell University, and that it was entirely 
free from all the limitations and restrictions contained 
in the congressional act of 1862 under which the land 
was originally derived. The effect of this decision 
was to throw upon the university the expense of the 
management of the lands and the taxes, which at this 
date aggregates more than $1,350,000. On the other 
hand, "The Cornell Endowment Fund" has been used 
by the trustees to build up for the State of New York 
a university worthy of its people and of its primacy 
in the Union. I hope the time is not far distant when 
it will be universally recognized that the distinctive 
function of Cornell University is to serve this state. 
When that day comes, instead of higgling over the 
interest which the act of congress prescribes for "The 
College Land Grant Fund," New York may follow 
the example set by most of the other states and care 
for all our land grant endowments at a rate not lower 
than five per cent. At present it occupies the unen- 
viable position of being the only state that pays less 
than five per cent. — and that too on the entire princi- 
pal of the fund derived from the sale of the lands 
granted under the Morrill act. I admit that the action 
of the state has been legally competent. But I ap- 
peal from legality to equity, and to the spirit of mod- 
eration and practicability, and to wise self-interest and 
mutual convenience. Cornell University is a very 
important organ of the body politic, and why should 
it alone be deprived of the nourishing life of the or- 



52 



Cornell University. 



ganism ? Other states have acted more wisely. The 
question is, not what the state 77iay do, but what in 
justice and wisdom it oiigJit to do. If good policy and 
generosity point in the same direction, a sovereign is 
none the less politic for being generous. After all, 
the university is not less indispensable to the state 
than the state to the university. 

There is still a stronger claim, under the terms of 
the Morrill act, which Cornell University must urge 
upon our commonwealth. It has been shown that no 
part of the funds derived from the bounty of the 
United States or the interest thereon can be applied, 
directly or indirectly, to the "purchase, erection, pres- 
ervation, or repair of any building or buildings." On 
the other hand, each state is put under obligations by 
the Morrill act to provide "at least not less than one 
college." This condition has been fulfilled, and its 
obvious intention, by the several states, with scarcely 
an exception. But the State of New York has not 
provided a single building for Cornell University 
which, however, it charges with teaching the branches 
of learning related to agriculture and the mechanic 
arts. At present the university is greatly in need of 
an agricultural hall and of an addition to the build- 
ings devoted to mechanical engineering, as I shall 
point out hereafter ; and I consider the occasion very 
opportune to remind the legislature of this long de- 
ferred, but not yet outlawed, obligation. 

Still my strongest argument in favor of support 
from the public treasury is that Cornell is in fact the 
university of the State of New York, just as, for ex- 
ample the institutions at Ann Arbor and at Berkeley 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 53 

are tlie state universities of Michigan and California. 
Unfortunately our institutions could not take that 
name ; for it was already borne by one of the oldest 
organizations in the state. The University of the 
State of New York, which is substantially the crea- 
tion of Alexander Hamilton, is a unique example of 
a supervisory university. It has no teachers, it gives 
no instruction, it seldom (I trust I may soon say, 
never) holds examinations for collegiate degrees. It 
is the agency by which the state conducts its rela- 
tions, not indeed with all its educational institutions, 
but with those of the higher and secondary education. 
This important and venerable organization, which is 
in reality a department of public instruction, had a 
vested right in the name, misnomer though it is, of 
the University of the State of New York. And so 
nothing remained for the new institution at Ithaca 
but to adopt the name of the benefactor whose muni- 
ficence saved for the highest educational work of the 
state the undivided congressional land grant. Kzra 
Cornell himself did not originate the name. And had 
he supposed it might breed misunderstanding re- 
garding the true relation of the university to the 
state we may be sure he would have forbidden its use. 
For nothing is more certain than that the object of 
his patriotic benefaction was to enable New York to 
establish a state university — an institution coming 
from the state, freely educating the state, and depend- 
ent upon the state for its support. 

This, too, I cannot doubt, was the intention of 
the legislature. In granting the charter of the uni- 
versity, the legislature reserved to itself the right of 



54 Cornell University, 

altering and amending it. And this right it has ex- 
ercised on different occasions. Furthermore, the leg- 
islature has asserted its control of the institution by 
the appointment of a committee to investigate its af- 
fairs. The state guarantees to the United States com- 
pliance on the part of Cornell University with the 
terms and conditions of the congressional act of 1862. 
The university is an object of the state's supervision, 
control, and ownership, as it is also the product of its 
creation. And in the constitution of the board of 
trustees the legislature asserted, in no uncertain 
terms, the sovereignty of the state. All the high 
state officials beginning with the governor himself, 
who could properly be charged with the duty, were 
made ex ojficio members of the board ; and, though 
other clauses of the charter have since undergone 
modification, this primary requirement has, ver^^ prop- 
erly, remained unchanged. Through these officials 
the state exercises a minute inspection of our affairs 
and a constant control over them ; and, as though the 
owner's right could not be too strongly guarded, be- 
hind this intermediary body is the general supervis- 
ory supremacy of the legislature. It is written in our 
charter, in the laws of the state, and in the acts of 
the legislature, that Cornell is the state university of 
New York. 

If this conclusion, which rests on a cumulative 
argument that I have not time to give in detail, seem 
to admit of the possibility of doubt which generally 
infects that species of reasoning, I am willing to stake 
the entire case on a single point which I have still to 
mention. The state directs Cornell University to 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 55 

give free tuition to 512 students annually, "as a re- 
ward for superior scholarship in the academies and 
public schools of this state." The charter of the uni- 
versity does not, indeed, contain this requirement. It 
provides that the institution shall annually receive 
students, one from each assembly district of the state 
free of any tuition fee or of any inci- 
dental charges." Now there are only 128 assembly 
districts ; but the state has demanded that each free 
scholar shall have the right to his scholarship for 
four years, and the university, in its desire to pro- 
mote the educational interests of the commonwealth 
has not contested the claim. Furthermore, to keep 
all the scholarships full, the state has authorized the 
filling of vacancies in any assembly district in which 
there are no qualified applicants, by students from 
other assembly districts. Instead of 128 free schol- 
arships with many of them unfilled, as the charter 
contemplated, we have now 512 free scholarships with 
all of them likely and liable to be filled. Now what 
is the value of this service of the state ? 

The entire cost of educating about i ,600 students 
is for the current year, apart altogether for interest 
on fixed capital, about $500,000. Nearly one-third of 
these students are free scholars from the State of New 
York. It needs no figuring to see that New York 
obliges Cornell University to contribute annually to 
the good of the state more than $150,000. Cornell is 
the state university of New York with a vengeance ! 
But though obligation is a sufiicient test, unilateral 
obligation can scarcely be the sole portion, of a great 
public institution. 



56 Cornell University. 

I say tliat if Cornell University be compared 
with any of the state universities in the great and 
flourishing commonwealths of the Northwest and far 
West she will be found to possess the higher char- 
acteristics which distinguish them and which, mak- 
ing her a true People's University, mark her off from 
the other colleges of the Eastern States. Like them 
she has a charter changeable at the will of the legis- 
lature. Like them she has a curriculum which is de- 
signed for the liberal and practical education of all 
classes of the people. Like them she opens her doors 
to women on equal terms with men. Like them she 
gives free tuition to students from the state. Like 
them she is the organ, instrument, and multiplying 
centre of all the interests — material and spiritual — 
embraced in the life and civilization of the state. 
Like them she is free from all party and sectarian 
control, diffusing her blessings without respect of 
persons or regard to creed, in obedience to the act of 
incorporation and under the control of the state 
which ordained it. Like them she stands both for 
liberal culture and professional training; and like 
them too she has enlarged the notion of "profession" 
till round the once narrow circle of clergymen, lawyer, 
and doctor are now grouped all those callings in 
which knowledge in any way ministers to practice, — 
so that agriculture, engineering, and architecture 
here stand on the same footing as language, history, 
or philosophy. Like the great state universities of the 
West in all these respects, Cornell yet differs in one. 
There the university is the beneficiary of the state ; 
here the state is the beneficiary of the university. 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 57 

The State of New York^ which has never cont^^ibiited 
from its own treasury one cent to Cornell University 
de7nands of Cornell University ^12 free scholarships at 
an a7tnual cost of more than $1^0^000 ! 

"But," it will be said, "New York assigned to 
Cornell University the federal land grant." Well, I 
do not know why one politic act should be a bar to 
further wisdom. But let us see precisely the value 
of the grant. Does it include all that has since been 
realized by the university in the management of the 
lands purchased of the state by Ezra Cornell ? No ; for 
the courts have decided that "The Cornell Endow- 
ment Fund" is no part of the congressional grant, 
but is owned absolutely as it was created entirely, by 
Cornell University. There remains, as the assignment 
of the state to Cornell University, only "The College 
Land Scrip Fund" or $473,402, on which the state 
pays us annually $18,000. If the state could in any 
way be credited with "The Cornell Endowment 
Fund," she would be under obligations to pay ulti- 
mately more than $1,500,000 for the management of 
the land and taxes, and to keep the net proceeds in- 
vested in good securities. It is then clear as any fact 
can possibly be, that the State of New York, which 
itself has never given a cent to Cornell University, 
demands in return for $18,000 a year, which was 
given by congress to enable us to provide instruction 
in pure and applied science, the free education of 
512 students at an annual cost ranging from $150,000 
to $175,000. 

Free education is certainly a desirable thing. I 
rejoice to think of the inestimable boon which Cor- 



58 Cornell University. 

nell University has been to the poor young men and 
women in every assembly district in this state. She 
has educated thousands who would otherwise have 
missed the life and power which a modern university 
education imparts, and to that extent she has directly 
enriched the state. And if I might venture to improve 
on Senator Morrill's saying, I would express the 
hope that Cornell University may continue to be for 
this state the instrument of larger education to larger 
numbers at the very lowest prices. I look with sadness 
and alarm on the growing cost of a collegiate educa- 
tion. Forty-four years ago when Bdward Everett, 
then president of Harvard College, appeared before a 
joint committee of the Board of Education of the leg- 
islature of Massachusetts, to secure for collegiate ed- 
ucation the support of the state, his first argument 
was that the cost to the student would be thereby 
cheapened. Massachusetts, for excellent reasons, did 
not grant the memorial of the petitioners. And the tu- 
ition fee at Harvard, which was then $75, is now double, 
and in some departments nearly treble, that charge. 
The rates are almost, in some cases quite, as high in all 
the larger universities to the east of the meridian of 
Cornell. And this fact seems to me the doom of private 
universities. To maintain their efficiency the charge 
for instruction must be so high that the masses of the 
people cannot afford to pay it. The great states to 
the west of us have adopted the policy of cheap, or 
even free, university education, the state itself bear- 
ing the cost, as in the case of public schools, high 
schools, and institutions of charity. With these en- 
terprising commonwealths freely educating all uni- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 59 

versity students tliat claim tlie privilege, New York 
cannot afford to abandon tlie free education of at least 
512. Rather, I say, let tlie number be increased. 

But shall a great state practice injustice that she 
may be benevolent ? What then is New York to do ? 
IMr. Chairman, this is a grave question, if ever there 
was one. And unwilling to trust my own judgment 
in a matter so momentous, I have consulted the 
greatest of political philosophers — a thinker who by 
his marvelous insight into the American Revolution 
of which he was a contemporary, has approved him- 
self worthy of our absolute confidence. In my perplex- 
ity I turned to Burke's great speech in the House of 
Commons on moving his resolutions for concilia- 
tion with the colonies. As often before I was charmed 
by the resounding magnificence of his language, but 
I was never more clearly illuminated by the princi- 
ples it re-echoed. I learned "that magnanimity in poli- 
tics is not seldom' the truest wisdom ; that a great em- 
pire and little minds go ill together." I shut the book. 
The problem was solved 1 The State of New York 
must take Cornell University to her bosom. Is it 
objected that the state has the right to neglect or even 
to oppress the university ? I reply that the question 
is not whether the state has the right to injure the 
university but whether it is not to its interest to make 
the university prosperous. Of what use to the state, 
I should like to know, is the right to injure a mem- 
ber of its own body ? From such an absurd right, I 
appeal to the reason, the humanity, and above all 
to the good policy of my proposal. In the name of 
equity and expediency^ and for the sake of her meritor- 



6o Cornell University. 

lous sons and daughters who?n we educate free of tui- 
tion^ I ask of the State of New York an annual ap- 
propriation to Cornell U^iiversity of not less than 
$1^0^000. 

No one can fail to recognize the justice of our 
claims upon the state. If these claims are not imme- 
diately satisfied, I shall not be disquieted, for they 
are of a nature to bide the slow award of 3^ears. And 
I am sure the people of this commonwealth will 
eventually open their eyes to the ill husbandry of in- 
justice to the state university. There are, however, 
two considerations which at the present time may be 
used to pervert their mental vision and to close up 
their hearts to the sentiment of duty, justice, and 
generosity. On the one hand, it will be said that the 
state cannot afford to make such large appropriations 
to Cornell University ; and, on the other, that the state 
ought to have nothing to do with the maintenance and 
support of the highest education. Both these argu- 
ments I shall now briefly consider. 

Assuming the righteousness of the claims of Cor- 
nell University, and the absolute justice and expedi- 
ency of satisfying them, the first question is. Can the 
state afford to make such considerable annual appro- 
priations to the university ? It will be admitted that 
the most satisfactory mode of answering this question 
is to compare the population and resources of our state 
with those of sister states which maintain universities 
at the public expense. New York is by far the most 
populous state in the Union, having, according to the 
census of 1890, a population of 6,000,000. Ohio comes 
fourth in rank with a population of 3,700,000. Not to 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 6i 

enter into minute details, I will simply observe tliat 
tlie population of New York is almost three times as 
great as that of either Indiana or Michigan, three and 
one-half times as great as that of Wisconsin, four and 
one-half times as great as that of Minnesota, five times 
as great as that of California, and five and one-half 
times as great as that of Nebraska. Turn now from 
population to property. The estimated true valuation 
for 1880 of all property within the state of New York 
is $6,300,000,000. This is twice the value of the prop- 
erty of Ohio, four times that of Indiana or Michigan, 
four and one-half times that of California, five and 
one-half times that of Wisconsin, eight times that of 
Minnesota, and sixteen times that of Nebraska. Al- 
though we habitually think of the Western states as 
the paradise for farmers. New York is not surpassed, 
either in the value of farms or in the value of farm 
products, by more than one state in the Union. And 
when we come to manufactures, the value of products 
is not only very high in itself, and the highest in the 
Union, it is more than three times that of Ohio, more 
than seven times that of either Indiana or Michigan, 
more than eight times that of Wisconsin, and more 
than nine times that of California. 

Now let us see what these states, some of them in 
comparison with New York poor and sparsely settled, 
contribute to their universities. I have the data up 
to 1888, and in one or two cases even later. The Uni- 
versity of Michigan, whose present organization goes 
back to 1837, received no aid from the state till 1867, 
when it had grown to be strong, renowned, and very 
numerously attended. Up to 1889 the total appropri- 



62 Cornell University. 

ations of tlie state of Michigan to lier university 
amounted to $1,850,000. This aid consisted partly of 
special grants and partly of a fixed annual tax of one- 
twentieth of a mill on every dollar of the appraised 
valuation of the taxable propert}^ of the state. In 
Michigan the congressional land grant of 1862 was 
not given to the university but to the agricultural col- 
lege, which had been opened in 1856. And this institu- 
tion has also received legislative appropriations which 
at this date amount to over $900,000. 

In Wisconsin, as in New York, the colleges of ag- 
riculture and mechanic arts are a part of the state uni- 
versity. And for some years the university had the 
same fate as Cornell. Though enjoying the income 
of the congressional grant (as also of the state semi- 
nar}'- lands) she did not receive a dollar from the pub- 
lic treasury till 1870, when the legislature gallantly 
entered upon its new and splendid educational career 
by appropriating $50,000 for the erection of a ladies' 
college. Not satisfied, however, with irregular contri- 
butions, the legislature enacted in 1878 that there 
should be levied and collected annually for the income 
of the university, a tax of one-tenth of one mill on each 
dollar of the assessed valuation of taxable property of 
the state ; and this tax has since been raised to nine- 
fortieths of a mill. This tax at present produces 
between $70,000 and $80,000 a year. But the legis- 
lature has supplemented it by special appropriations. 
For example, it granted, between 1885 and 18S8, 
$350,000 for buildings, apparatus, and cabinets. One 
other act I shall mention not for the magnitude, but 
for the wisdom, of the appropriations. In 1889 the leg- 



Inauguration of President Schurman, 63 

islature passed an act appropriating annually the sum 
of $1,000 to aid in maintaining a summer school for 
teachers in connection with the university. 

I regret that time does not permit me to give even 
a short account of the evolution of the duty of pub- 
licly supporting their universities in other Western 
states. I know of no sentiment of so late a growth 
which has attained such strength and efficiency. In 
Minnesota, the university, to which in 1868 was as- 
signed the income of the congressional land grant, has 
received from the legislature special appropriations 
which, up to July 31, 1888, amounted to about $600,000; 
and the regular annual appropriation is now $40,000. 
The University of California, which was opened for 
the reception of students in 1869, grew up out of the 
congressional act in much the same way as Cornell. 
Before the close of 1885 the state had appropriated 
about $750,000 for buildings, equipment, and supplies, 
special preference being shown among the depart- 
ments to the college of agriculture ; and in 1887 the 
legislature established for the support of the univer- 
sity, a perpetual state tax of one-tenth of a mill on 
each dollar of assessed valuation of property. From 
this ever-increasing source of income the university 
now receives not far short of $100,000 annually. The 
University of Indiana, which is now in receipt of a 
large annual appropriation, will have had from the 
state, by 1895, grants and appropriations, aggregat- 
ing more than $1,200,000. In Nebraska the congres- 
sional grant was united with the state seminary lands, 
and the consolidated fund set apart as an endowment 
for the university. But the state, in the very year in 



64 Cornell University. 

whicli the university was chartered, voted it a tax of 
one mill on each dollar of taxable property. This rate 
was subsequently changed ; but it is still three-eighths 
of a mill, which is the highest university tax in 
America. 

The history of state taxation for university pur- 
poses in the neighboring commonwealth of Ohio is 
for us of special interest and encouragement. The uni- 
versity which received the congressional grant is lo- 
cated at Columbus. The people of Ohio took little in- 
terest in it before 1888 ; and the legislative appropri- 
ations did not average more than $15,000 a year. Its 
pretensions to be the state university were resisted by 
sister colleges, — and Ohio has more colleges than any 
other state in the Union. But the duty of providing at 
the lowest rates the highest and the largest education 
for the masses of the people finally made itself felt in 
Ohio. And in 1890, Governor Campbell, in his mes- 
sage to the legislature, recommended the levy, for the 
use of the university, of an annual tax of one-twentieth 
of a mill on every dollar of the valuation of the as- 
sessed property of the state. Public sentiment strong- 
ly favored the measure, and a bill introduced by the 
speaker of the house speedily became law, placing the 
university on the same footing as the common schools 
and providing for its support by the one-twentieth of 
a mill tax, which yields this year about $So,ooo. 

In Pennsylvania the land grant college was up 
to 1887 almost as much neglected by the state as Cor- 
nell University. But agitation awakened the people 
of that commonwealth to a perception of the obliga- 
tion imposed upon them to furnish buildings and ap- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 65 

pliances to the college endowed by tlie bounty of con- 
gress. The land grant act of 1862 forbade the states 
to use the congressional fund for buildings or repairs, 
and at the same time obligated each state to provide 
"at least not less than one college." In fulfillment 
of this obligation the State of Pennsylvania has since 
1887 provided its land grant college with several large, 
commodious, and costly buildings ; so that Pennsyl- 
vania no longer keeps New York company in neg- 
lecting to comply with the conditions on which each 
state received the federal land grant. 

Next ? Why, New York ! And I leave the forego- 
ing facts without application. They tell the wealth of 
our state ; they indicate its duty ; and {sursum corda f) 
they auspicate its future. 

I recollect, however, almost too late, that I prom- 
ised before finishing this branch of my subject to say 
something of the proposition that the state is not called 
upon to support higher education. Well, let me say 
at once that I look with the profoundest suspicion on 
every abstract theory of the functions of the state. 
The speculations of the individualist and of the so- 
cialist are alike castles in the air. In civil as in pri- 
vate affairs men are guided, not by metaphysical spec- 
ulations, but by a desire to attain the highest good. 
Subtle disputations are for the schools ; the true states- 
man aims at the highest welfare of the citizens. And 
in the pursuit of this object he finds that the com- 
munion and fellowship of a great commonwealth ne- 
cessitates the healthful activity of a great variety of 
organs. One of these is the agency, — called school, 
college or university, — which maintains, diflfuses, and 



66 CoRNELi, University. 

multiplies the intelligence of tlie common wealth. The 
old classical colleges were supported by your ances- 
tors so long as they represented the intellectual life 
of the people. When they withdrew from the living 
present (or rather when the living present left them 
behind) to the seclusion of antiquity, the states re- 
fused to support them from the public treasury. A 
new and better organ of our intellectual life was de- 
manded ; and universities like Cornell, which date 
their origin from the Morrill act, have been framed by 
educators to give larger and better instruction to the 
youth of our own time. In voting them support from 
the taxes of the state, legislators are not doing any- 
thing new ; they are simply following in the tracks of 
their ancestors. They cannot do better than revert to 
that treasury of maxims and principles which enabled 
the colonists to frame the constitution and set up the 
Republic. But our history only begins with the colon- 
ies ; and there have been great statesmen since Wash- 
ington and Jefferson and Hamilton. I appeal, therefore, 
not only to the oldest practice of your forefathers in 
the Kast, but to the newest practice of your brothers 
in the West. The support of the higher and highest 
education by the state has the warrant of experience ; 
and experience tells us of no other means at all effect- 
ual for the purpose. 

How else can we provide for our youth the knowl- 
edge on which our civilization rests, even if nothing 
be said of increasing that knowledge ? The artisan 
needs it ; the farmer needs it ; the mechanic needs it ; 
the engineer needs it ; the architect needs it ; the teach- 
er needs it ; the lawyer, doctor, and minister need it ; 



Inauguration op President Schurman. 67 

all classes and conditions need it, either to enricli tlieir 
lives or procure a livelihood. Who will undertake the 
task of supplying it, if the state will not ? The church- 
es ? No ; for the churches as such are interested, not 
in every kind of liberal and practical education, but 
merely in that particular sort necessary for the train- 
ing of the clergy. The denominational colleges are 
the old-fashioned classical colleges. And nothing is 
more patent than that the college-founding instinct, 
with the ever increasing growth of knowledge, is be- 
coming atrophied in all denominations. I cannot think 
of a great modern university which owes its origin 
to a religious body. The very newest one may indeed 
seem to be an exception ; but whatever the charter of 
that institution may prescribe in regard to the relig- 
ious complexion of the board of trustees, its original 
endowment came from a wise and philanthropic gen- 
tleman in this state, and the later reinforcements have, 
it is said, been derived from local, not denominational, 
sources. Shall we then entrust the cause of higher 
education to private universities ? No ; they are in 
supply too capricious, in maintenance too precarious, 
in efficiency too variable, and in the charge for instruc- 
tion they are too far beyond the means of the masses 
of the people. Denominational and private colleges 
belong to an age which is passing away ; and though 
we may trust and believe — as I certainly do — that 
higher education will continue to enjoy the support 
of philanthropic wealth, its main reliance must be on 
the state ; the future must be with the People's Uni- 
versity. 



68 Cornell University. 

I say tlien that if New York had not a great state 
university it wonld be her dnt}^ to establish one. The 
principle on which the public school rests is that all 
the property of the people must provide education for 
the children of all the people. Last year we levied 
taxes, state and local, amounting to $18,000,000 for 
the maintenance of the public schools of this state. 
There is not a single argument in favor of the free 
public school which is not equally cogent as an argu- 
ment in favor of the free public university. The pub- 
lic school is maintained at the public expense because 
it is a powerful instrument for the preservation and 
promotion of that variety of agencies, influences, and 
results, to which we give the collective name of civili- 
zation. Universities have the same end and attain it 
more completely. Both institutions train human fac- 
ulty and conserve the results it achieves, while one 
also multiplies these results. The cost of maintain- 
ing the state university is, therefore, as fairly charge- 
able upon the property of the people as the cost of the 
public school establishment. This maxim admits of 
no exception, provided the university represents im- 
partially all the intellectual interests embraced with- 
in the circuit of our civilization, and offers its privi- 
leges without charge to all classes of the people. Such 
an university is the best practical answer that can be 
furnished to the charge — dangerous anywhere, but 
especially dangerous in a democracy — that our citi- 
zens have not all a fair chance, and that the state is 
an instrument of organized injustice. I hold it im- 
possible in the nature of things to equalize men's 
property ; but it is perfectly feasible, as experience 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 69 

shows, to give equal opportunities for mental cultiva- 
tion and attainment. In the interest of the large ma- 
jority of our people, it is both just and politic for the 
state to offer universal free education of the highest 
as well as of the lowest order. As Huxley has well said : 
" No system of public education is worthy the name 
of national unless it creates a great educational ladder, 
with one end in the gutter and the other in the uni- 
versity." The people already enjoy political liberty, 
but the spirit of fraternity now invites the poor boys 
and girls of every district in our state to share with 
their more fortunate fellows the intellectual goods and 
forces to which the modern world is heir. I am sure 
the good sense of this commonwealth, when it express- 
es itself by ballot, will not reject a reasonable propo- 
sition, because it is recommended by humanity, good 
policy, and justice, as well as by reason itself. Or are 
we so taken up with the rights of property that we 
totally forget the rights of man ? Is the end of the 
state merely the accumulation of wealth ? No, the 
state is to be regarded with other reverence. In the 
noble language of the philosopher who saw the weak- 
ness and the irrationality of the French Revolution, 
the state is "not a partnership in things subservient 
only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and 
perishable nature ; it is a partnership in all science ; 
a partnership in all art ; a partnership in every vir- 
tue, and in all perfection." 

In the communion of the state the people are to 
be sharers of all the good things of civilization in so 
far as that is possible without invasion of personal 
rights. Foremost among these good things, and ab- 



yo CoRNEivL University. 

solutel}^ indispensable to the existence of a civilized 
state as well as to the welfare of its citizens, are 
knowledge and the power which knowledge gives. 
The school is the organ of the state's intellectual life. 
The university is the highest school. It stands to 
the institutions of primary and secondary education 
in a relation similar to that sustained in the natural 
body by the brain to the lower centres of the nerv^ous 
system. It is the originating, directing, and regu- 
latino- orean of the hiofher intellectual life and activ- 
ity of the state. And just as the brain draws from 
the bodily organism as a whole the copious and fre- 
quent supplies of energy which it exhausts in its 
work, so the genuine university is dependent, for 
healthy and vigorous functioning, upon large and con- 
tinuous appropriations from the treasury of the body 
politic. And great as is our country as a whole, great 
as is this empire state, our people have not yet, either 
here or elsewhere, formed any adequate idea of the 
needs of a modem university. This is all the more 
deplorable as the most potent ally of the people is an 
ef&cient People's University, 

Cornell University, which is the only official 
organ of the higher intellectual life of New York, 
has an income not exceeding $500,000. And with 
this income she is to promote, so the charter directs, 
the liberal and practical education of the young men 
and women of this commonwealth in all the ranks 
and professions of life ! Observe that Cornell is to be 
a seat both of "liberal" and of "practical" education ; 
and observe, furthermore, that this education is to be 
adapted to the intellectual needs of all workers in the 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 71 

state. Mr. Chairman, it is a high and sacred voca- 
tion to whicli we are called ; and we liave made ever}^ 
effort to fulfill it. But let us make full confession to 
the state which has entrusted us with this work. Our 
means mock our vocation ! Were our revenues doub- 
led, — as I trust they may soon be doubled by. public 
grants and private gifts — we should still fall far short 
of a realization of my ideal of a true modem People's 
University. And to give definiteness to this propo- 
sition I will close by stating briefly some of the most 
urgent needs of the university. 

A university must have costly buildings and ap- 
pliances, but these are only means to enable the teach- 
er to do his work efficiently. In the most literal 
sense, therefore, it is the instructing staff that makes 
the university. And the teacher's, I hold, is the high- 
est calling among men. But it is, I believe, the worst 
paid. Now there is always danger that the remuner- 
ation customary in a profession may determine the 
estimation in which that profession is held. And to 
the great detriment of the commonwealth, the profes- 
sion of teaching has already fallen into some dises- 
teem. The board of trustees of Cornell University 
recognize that, as a matter both of private justice and 
public policy, the salaries of our professors should be 
higher than they are. But, hemmed in by necessity, 
they are at present unable to accomplish what they 
so earnestly desire ; and they appeal to all who appre- 
ciate the value of high and trained intelligence to 
come to their relief. 

But even professors are for the sake of students. 
And Cornell has always had an unusually large num- 



72 Cornell University. 

ber of poor, struggling, able, bigb-minded youtb, 
especiall}^ from tbe State of New York. Some of tbem 
are candidates for advanced degrees ; most of them 
complete tbe undergraduate course. For tbe former 
we are greatly in need of fellowsbips. One or two hun- 
dred fellowships of tbe annual value of $500 each, 
could be distributed with great profit to able and stu- 
dious graduates who come here for tbe master's and 
doctor's degrees. We have admirable facilities for ad- 
vanced research and investigation ; and within the last 
few years our graduate department has become one of 
the strongest, best known, and most frequented in 
America. What it now needs, above all things, is a 
large fund for the benefit of poor and deserving grad- 
uates who wish to become expert in their specialties. 
Here is a fine field for the bounty of individuals. How 
can a man better perpetuate his name than by con- 
necting it with one or more of these fellowships ? 
And what a luxury to be able to aid the poor but tal- 
ented young men and women who are to mould the 
civilization of the next generation ! In regard to un- 
dergraduates I recommend a plan which has been in- 
itiated by the wisdom and bounty of Mr. Amos Padg- 
ham, of Syracuse. Mr. Padgham has founded a schol- 
arship in this university for the student from the 
public schools of Syracuse who enters with the high- 
est standing. This is a stimulus to local schools, a 
prize to students, and a help to the university. I com- 
mend Mr. Padgham 's example to the rich men and 
women in every city and village in the state. There 
is no limit to the number of scholarships of this sort 
which might be established in Cornell University. 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 73 

And what a variety of good ends would be observed 
by each endowment of $5,000 ! 

In the work of investigation, which is the crown- 
ing achievement of every large university, we are 
straitened by lack of means for the publication of 
results. Thanks to the generosity of a constant 
friend, the department of philosophy has a publica- 
tion fund, and no other investment of the same sum 
could have been so helpful as The Philosophical Re- 
view. Other departments have masses of material, 
the valuable results of protracted investigations, which 
cannot see the light because, like most new discov- 
eries, there is no money in them for publishers. 
Consequently the endowment of publication is im- 
perative. We need at once an income of $10,000 a 
year for this purpose, and twice that sum in the near 
future. The communication of knowledge by word 
of mouth alone is a singular phenomenon in a uni- 
versity, now that reading is taking so generally the 
place of speech. And to illustrate how Cornell suf- 
fers, I may say that other institutions are publishing, 
naturally without giving us any credit, investigations 
which were undertaken and completed in this uni- 
versity. 

One other general need is that of dormitories. 
With the rapidly increasing numbers of our students, 
the friends of the university should come to the aid 
of the city in providing lodgings for them. The 
cost of living in Ithaca must be kept low. And the 
city in the next few years is likely to be full, even 
though a dozen benefactors should give the univer- 
sity as many dormitories, each at a cost of $100,000. 



74 CoRNEivL University. 

The rent received for rooms, wliicli, however, should 
always be kept at a moderate figure, would be a con- 
stant source of income to the university. Let us see 
to it that Cornell never ceases to be the poor man's 
university. 

When I turn from general university needs to 
the specific needs of departments, I know not where 
to begin amid all the urgent appeals that come to the 
board. But I will follow the order of our register and 
start with the literary, historical, and philosophical 
disciplines to which we give the collective term of hu- 
manities. I notice, in the first place, that of the two 
great sources of human civilization, one is not even 
mentioned in our curriculum. It would be shameful, 
were it not a tragic proof of our poverty, that Cor- 
nell University is still without chairs of Semitic and 
Oriental civilization, even without a professorship of 
that Hebrew literature which has furnished the sub- 
limest content of modern civilization. Though the 
historical department is otherwise strong, it needs 
much money for new chairs and additional books, 
especially in the way of original sources, to keep pace 
with the progress of historical investigation. But of 
all the studies whose object is man, that dealing with 
the production and distribution of wealth is the one 
which the university is most urgently called upon to 
strengthen. It is a sad confession to make here at the 
centre of the richest state in the Union. Perhaps the 
knowledge of this need will cause wealth at once to 
flow to its relief We should have professorships of 
economics, finance, statistics, social science, etc., and 
an equipment of books for verification of any state- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 75 

ment that miglit be made regarding tlie wealth of the 
world. For philosophy I ask nothing ; the endow- 
ment given by Mr. Sage hds put that department on 
a solid basis, and the work is commanding no little 
attention. The collection of casts, donated by the 
same benefactor, will hereafter furnish illustrative 
material for the studies of the ancient classics such as 
few other universities possess ; but for the establish- 
ment of a well-equipped school of fine art, — of paint- 
ing, statuary, and music, — an endowment of not less 
than $1,000,000 will be necessary. As to language 
and literature, both the group of ancient and the group 
of modem languages and literatures demand rein- 
forcement ; and in the interest of the schools of the 
state, as well as for their own sake, these subjects 
should be supported by liberal grants, very much 
larger than the university is.now able to make. This 
is pre-eminently true of English, the constant need, 
as it may be the constant inspiration, of every stu- 
dent at every age. And I hold it to be one of the sev- 
eral missions of Cornell University to train a certain 
number of students directly for English teacherships 
and to obtain for them positions in preparatory schools. 
Passing from the literary to the scientific field, 
we meet mathematics at the entrance. In this uni- 
versity it is now taught to nearly 700 students, either 
for the purpose of liberal or of practical education. 
Our staff, though large, is overworked ; and our rooms 
are altogether inadequate. We should have, besides 
a large building, many thousands of dollars a year 
to add to the efficiency of this department. Astron- 
omy, the oldest and sublimest science, fares rather 



76 Cornell University. 

worse than any other. I do not say we must excel 
the Lick or any other observatory, though I should 
rejoice in a donation for that purpose ; but I do say 
that, investigation apart, we need, even to make our 
teaching effective, an observatory which could not be 
built, equipped, and maintained for much less than 
$500,000. In chemistry, though we have a strong 
staff and a laboratory whose equipment is confessed- 
ly very complete, we need new chairs of theoretical, 
technical, and physiological chemistry, additional lab- 
oratories for the increasing number of students, and 
annual appropriations twice as large as those now 
available for apparatus and material. In the flourish- 
ing department of phj'-sics, the classes have already 
outgrown the present large building ; and a new lec- 
ture room and two new laboratories for research are 
indispensable, as well as increased funds for new 
equipment, including perhaps in the not distant fu- 
ture the transmission of power from Niagara Falls. 
Among the pure sciences the group formerly desig- 
nated natural history is urgently in need of strength- 
ening. The department of botany should have at 
least another professorship and also better equipment ; 
and a botanic garden, a museum of economic botany, 
a herbarium, and an arboretum cannot long be defer- 
red. Our entomologist should be relieved of inverte- 
brate zoology. And for that subject, as well as for 
vertebrate zoology, comparative anatomy, and ph3^si- 
ology, new professorships should be established, so 
that the two professors who now make a specialt}^ of 
the morphology of the brain and vertebrate histology 
might be relieved of all other responsibilities. In the 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 77 

department of geology, we need in addition to a 
general professorship, chairs of paleontology, petro- 
graphy, economic geology, and physical geography 
with all their accompaniments. Besides these speci- 
fic wants, the buildings and museums now available 
for the several departments of natural history will in 
the near future prove altogether inadequate. 

Look in the last place at our professional schools. 
The school of law after being domiciled several years 
in the attic of Morrill Hall, now rejoices in the pos- 
session of a new, commodious, and even luxurious 
building of its own. And its library with the recent 
addition of the Moak collection, is one of the best in 
the country. But the school needs endowments to 
keep up its innumerable series of reports ; and if the 
increase in attendance continues at the rate of this 
year, additional professors will have to be appointed 
in the near future, as indeed a librarian should be 
appointed now. 

Lincoln Hall is no longer large enough for the 
departments of architecture and civil engineering. 
The former requires a separate building, which should 
provide enlarged draughting rooms, a museum for 
the display of models, casts, materials of construction 
and products, and a gallery for the exhibition of pho- 
tographs and prints. This would cost at least $60,000. 
And twice that sum is necessary for increasing the 
staff of instruction and for adding to the permanent 
equipment. 

In this age of rapid locomotion the importance 
of civil engineering, in its most obvious province, is 
abundantly manifest. But few persons realize the 



78 Cornell University. 

cost of maintaining a thoroughly equipped college of 
civil engineering. We hold ours to be second to none 
in the country. But the entire value of its equip- 
ment for all purposes is not as large as the value of 
the machinery and apparatus of the cement testing 
laboratory alone of the great school at Zurich. Re- 
call the subjects that must be taught in a completely 
organized college — railroad construction, bridge con- 
struction, hydraulics, methods of drainage, etc., — and 
you will agree that $1,000,000 would be a moderate 
sum to add to the endowment of our college of civil 
engineering. 

Still larger are the demands of the department of 
mechanical engineering, because of the greater num- 
ber of students. Everything is now too small in Sib- 
ley College. We need more class-rooms, more engi- 
neering laboratories, more draughting rooms, more 
professors. The limitation of funds has prevented the 
establishment of maii}^ branches of engineering ; and 
those already established await further development. 
The first manufacturing state in the Union, New York 
can afford to foster a first class school of mechanic 
arts ; and in accepting the congressional grant of 1862 
it pledged support to this one. It is to the interest of 
the state, not less than to the interest of Cornell Uni- 
versit}^, that there should be liberal and steady appro- 
priations for the maintenance of a department which 
contributes so largely to the progress of the material 
side of our civilization. 

From the very beginning Cornell University has 
paid special attention to the two subjects, which, more 
than any other, vitally affect the interests of the ma- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 79 

jority of our people — I mean agricultural and veter- 
inary science. What the university has achieved in 
these fields is known, not only to educators but to the 
farmers of our state. But it is the merest fraction of 
what with adequate resources might be done. We 
need an appropriation, for a college of veterinary sci- 
ence, of at least $40,000 a year. This is demanded 
alike in the interests of health and wealth. In the 
State of New York, for a period of eight 3^ears ending 
with 1887, every eighth death was from tuberculosis ; 
and the infection in most cases comes from the lower 
animals. Three per cent, of our cattle are tuberculous. 
Comparative pathology will probably be the next 
fruitful field for medicine. It is a field for which Cor- 
nell University has unusual facilities and to which it 
is especially summoned by the legal mandate to give 
liberal and practical education. Nothing is needed for 
success but a fair appropriation from the treasury of 
the state. And at the same time liberal provision 
should be made for agriculture including horticulture. 
The first and imperative need is that of a building 
large enough to house along with the department of 
agriculture, those of horticulture, entomology, and 
dairy husbandry. It should contain a museum for the 
exhibition of all kinds of agricultural implements. 
The home of teachers and investigators, it should be 
made the living centre of all the agricultural interests 
of the state. Students would come for the regular 
courses, or for short winter courses ; and those who 
could not leave their homes might receive instruction 
by correspondence. Bulletins would be published giv- 
ing the result of investigations. All this and more, 



8o Cornell University. 

if we had aid from the state, could be done for the ben- 
efit of our farmers, as we already do a good deal even 
without that aid. We should need at least $200,000 
for the building, and then such appropriations as 
would make the work in it worthy of the vast agri- 
cultural resources and wealth of this imperial state. 
Consider the importance of our live stock and dairy 
products merely. The census of 1880 gives the value 
of the live stock of the United States as $1,500,000,- 
000, and of New York State as $117,000,000. There 
are 1,500,000 cows in the State of New York. An in- 
crease of one cent per pound in the average price of 
our dairy products would amount to $1,875,000. And 
how easy it would be to create this wealth by scien- 
tific instruction in the art of making butter and cheese. 
But I have tired you by a long discourse. The 
gist of it all, however, may be briefly put. Cornell Uni- 
versity was designed for the benefit of the people of 
this commonwealth. But in accepting the land grant 
from congress. New York pledged state aid to the 
institution receiving the proceeds. This is Cornell 
University. Now Cornell University has never re- 
ceived one cent from the treasury of the State of 
New York. On the other hand, the state requires 
the university to give free tuition to 512 students 
annually, at a cost ranging this year from $150,000 
to $175,000, thereby imposing upon the universit}^ 
burdens never contemplated by the charter. But 
the university has now reached a point in its de- 
velopment at which, if it is to furnish liberal and 
practical education to the largest numbers in all 
the pursuits and professions of life, it must have sup- 



Inauguration of President Schurman. 8i 

port from the public treasury as well as from tlie 
bounty of private individuals. Tlius only can the 
university fulfill its vocation of furnishing the high- 
est education to all classes at the lowest cost. Its ends 
are the ends of the state. It is dedicated to truth and 
to utility ; and between these there is no incompatibil- 
ity ; for, as Plato has well said, the divinest things are 
the most serviceable. We are at once realistic and 
idealistic. And while we cherish the old we are 
always in quest of something better. The genius of 
Cornell University stands on the solid earth ; and 
while his eyes front the dawn, the ancient heavens 
are about him, and through all its resounding spaces 
he hears the noble mother call. Excelsior ! So may 
it be ! So shall it be ; for the people of New York will 
not suffer either private gifts or public grants to 
fail us. 



Benediction by the Rev. Charles M. Tyler, D.D.: 

Now, may the blessings of God the Father Almighty, the 
grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the fellowship 
and communion of the Holy Ghost, abide with us all forever. 
Amen. 



Music — "Furore," by the Orchestra. 



82 Cornell University. 



THE UNIVERSITY RECEPTION. 



A reception was tendered President and Mrs. Schurman 
by the University at Armory Hall, Friday evening, from 8 to ii 
p. M. The hall was suitabl}^ decorated and the music was fur- 
nished by Gartland's Orchestra of Alban3\ The reception was 
largely attended by the trustees, members of the corps of in- 
struction, their families, students and friends of the University 
and was a very successful social event. 



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